


Thaumaturgy

by Kokochan, TheBlueSpanch



Series: Of The Pack [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Black Paladin Allura (Voltron), Dragons, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Magic, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Multi, Never get between a mage and their breakfast, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pidge you naughty girl, Post-Season/Series 02, Super Ninja Space Mom, Team Bonding, Team as Family, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-12-18 19:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 110,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kokochan/pseuds/Kokochan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlueSpanch/pseuds/TheBlueSpanch
Summary: Keith sniffled. “Don't say that, Mom. Every time a long-lost relative says that, they wind up dead a little while later.”His mother snorted. “Ah, yes. I spent a great deal of time watching that sort of thing on television while living with your father. Garbage, child. I am not a Human. I am a Galra, and a very highly-trained warrior at that. If anyone tries to come between us again, I will kill them and make you a gift of their skulls.”Keith chuckled damply. “No thanks, I've got too much stuff on my shelf already. I'll settle for having my own Space Ninja Mom instead.”“I'll keep the skulls, then,” she said, squeezing him gently. “Tell me, then, if you can bear to, what happened to you and your father after I left?”





	1. Out of the Un-Mown

**Author's Note:**

> Kokochan: And so the next arc begins! Woo! I feel like I should have something profound or important to say here, but I kinda just hope everyone continues to enjoy the story. Meanwhile, the usual warnings apply. Spanch and I do not own Voltron in any of its incarnations, versions, or reboots. We just like writing stories where the characters do silly stuff and possibly cuddle.

Of The Pack

Part 2: Thaumaturgy

Chapter 1: Out Of The Un-Mown

 

The midnight wind sang through the tall grasses of the prairies of Zampedri, sending an ancient wild music through the star-washed darkness. Lizenne sat on an outcropping of stone and listened, although not to the wind. She listened to her own heartbeat, to the heartbeats of the great pack of dragons downslope of her perch, and to Modhri's sleeping heart, tucked up safe in the ship. And to another's, who was only newly-arrived to this world. Lizenne turned her mind to that newcomer, and smiled. Things were about to get interesting.

She and Modhri had spent the last several months laying groundwork for the fall of the Emperor. An uprising here, a major systems failure there, rumors for the rumor-mill, opportunities for pirates, and a choice bit of spying. All to smooth the path for the greatest tools of _Tahe Moq_ , her friends and allies in their great Lions. It was working, she could see it. Voltron was victorious wherever it chose to fight. Other factors were lending their efforts quite independently of her own, and she welcomed them. Their strength was not infinite, however, and they had come back to Zampedri to rest. It was a comforting sort of place to herself and to Modhri, and home to her pack. Tilla and Soluk had needed to run with their kin again, and so had she, and Modhri needed the quiet domesticity of minding the ship and feeding her whenever she came back in out of the wild.

She shifted slightly on her perch, listening to the newcomer's heart. It was familiar, so it was; she'd spent a weary evening once, not so long ago, listening to an echo of it in another young heart. The newcomer was near her ship, and she tensed, touching the bone spear tipped with a serrated tambok fang, hard as a steel blade and twice as sharp. The newcomer came away without interfering with the hatches, which was wise. The _Chimera Rising_ was from a Hanifor shipyard, and the Hanifors believed that a locked hatch should stay locked. Instead, that person cast about with senses and devices of its own, and proceeded at a steady trot in Lizenne's direction. _Good,_ she thought. Better to have this out in the open where Lizenne had the advantage. If this was who Lizenne thought this was, she did _not_ want this guest inside the ship before they'd had a chance to talk. Lizenne took a deep breath and picked up her spear. Not a quarterstaff this time, not out here in the wilds of Zampedri. Even the least and littlest of the predators out here would simply ignore a mere quarterstaff, or use it as a toothpick after eating its owner. Closer, closer... the newcomer was fast. Lizenne opened her eyes and looked to one side, seeing three dots of cold, pale-lavender light peering back at her from the grasses.

_Right._ Her own heart pulsed strongly as the adrenaline hit it, and she gave her guest a feral grin before leaping away into the night.

She heard the other's footsteps behind her almost immediately, and the rush of grass against body armor. What must the other think of her, she wondered as she sped away. A lean female Galra of original forest stock, dressed in nothing more than a few stitched-together atinbuk hides, barefoot and carrying a bone spear? Lizenne hoped that she was baffling the creature and was aware that she probably wasn't. Bafflement could wait until the hunt was done.

Ah, yes, the hunt. There were long eerie hoots sounding through the night air now as the dragons reacted to the chase; the pack was aware that there was a hunter in their midst. Lizenne was part of this pack, and the pack was as one. The dragons knew what she knew, and accepted that she knew what she was doing. As Lizenne dashed through the center of the pack, great spiny heads tossed and deep voices bellowed, their great hearts quickening; the dragons began to run. To its credit, their pursuer did not hesitate to follow, but matched Lizenne stride for stride.  _Namturan,_ she thought, those long legs and sinewy build adapted precisely for worlds like this one. Lizenne, however, knew this prairie like the back of her hand, even in pitch-darkness. They were equals in this chase, and would be equals in the following battle. The lek was only a little further now, an ancient piece of pavement, still intact after all this time, the only remaining indicator that there had once been a civilization on this world.

Lizenne's toe-claws clacked on stone now, and she leaped aside as a second set of clacking sounds announced her guest's presence. Lizenne turned at bay to see a lavender-spotted shadow, the gleam of a long knife shining in the starlight. On the crosspiece burned the pale-purple sigil  _Marmora._ Around them in the darkness was the thunder of clawed feet and other curious sounds; the dragons were watching. All around the lek were the bright blue gleams of dragon eyes, from the cobalt glints of the newly-mobile young to the azure glow of the elders. Breathing steady, Lizenne observed the shrouded figure in silence.  _Techno-warrior against savage wildwoman,_ Lizenne thought with amusement,  _we should have sold tickets._

The Blade warrior looked around itself in perplexity; who wouldn't, when surrounded by so many large predators? It raised its dark blade in salute, and then charged. Exotic alloy struck sparks from exotic bone when Lizenne blocked that slash; she'd used the long leg bone of an adult yulpadi for the shaft of her spear, and like every other large animal on this world, the substance of their bones was mind-bogglingly strong. Lizenne and her foe tested each other's strength and found themselves equal; flint-hard warrior against well-trained witch. She pushed back hard and brought the spearpoint around in a slash that would have gutted the Blade had it not jumped back quickly enough; it attacked again immediately, jabbing the sword at shoulder and hip. Disabling strikes, aimed to cripple rather than kill. So, it wanted her alive, did it? That made sense. Lizenne knew who this Blade was now, and her suspicions were confirmed when it tried to pull the spear from her hands with the hook of its sword. This motion yanked Lizenne closer, who was shorter and lighter than the Blade was, close enough to catch its scent. Oh yes, Lizenne knew who this was. Lizenne twisted free, landed a kick on the other's hip, narrowly avoided being hamstrung, and returned the sentiment with a stab that came close to impaling the Blade.

How long they fought, she did not know. It would have taken a lot less time if she had used her more arcane talents, but that would have been disrespectful of her opponent, and Lizenne's own pride forbade her from cheating. The dragons boomed and crackled in the distance, excited by the spectacle, and great horned heads tossed and shook in the starlight. Eventually, however, the fates conspired against her. A windblown seed-head from the grasses somehow found its way under her right foot, causing an unexpected slip; the loss of balance gave the Blade the opening that it had been searching for and Lizenne's spear spiraled away into the night. A second later, Lizenne was flat on her back on the stone with the Blade straddling her hips, sword's edge against her throat. The sword did not complete that strike, however, because Lizenne's hand was now flat against the Blade's breast, and gold gleamed between her fingers as her power gripped the Blade's heart. One wrong twitch and one of them, perhaps both, would die.

“Sword down, madame,” Lizenne said dryly, “I truly do not want to have to complete this spell.”

The Blade hesitated, and Lizenne felt her tremble. Slowly, slowly, the sword lifted away from Lizenne's neck, and there was a bright gleam in the night as it shifted back into a much smaller knife. With equal care, the knife was sheathed, although the Blade did not otherwise move. Wise. If Lizenne's hand broke contact with her chest, her heart would stop instantly and fatally. That the Blade knew this was interesting.

“Let me up, please,” Lizenne said calmly, and with great care was able to extricate herself from the warrior's grip, keeping her palm firmly planted.

“Release me,” the Blade rasped.

“Not quite yet. You will swear on your Blade and your Oath that you will not fight me again, nor will you strike at my ship, my man, or my friends. Swear it, I say. You're a bit excitable for my taste, and I dislike being attacked out of the blue.”

The Blade growled under her breath, but bowed her head. “I so swear, by Blade and Oath, that I will not harm you or yours. Release me. Where is my son, witch?”

Lizenne chuckled and undid the spell, eliciting a faint gasp of relief from the Blade. “He's as safe as it's possible for him to be. I need a drink, Blade. There's a small spring not too far from here, and I've got a camp set up next to it. We shall take tea and rest, and talk like civilized persons.”

“Those creatures...” the Blade eyed the blue-eyed shadows warily.

“Will not interfere. A pair of them might want to look you over later, but they know when to keep their distance. We're quite safe.” Lizenne smiled at her and got to her feet, looking around for her spear. “Safer, actually, than we would be if they weren't here. Come on.”

Later, they were seated around a small fire with a kettle coming to a boil above it. Lizenne handed the Blade her spare cup and dug a packet of dried hantic leaf out of her cache. Hantic tea would calm her guest and ease the aches they'd acquired during their struggle. When she turned back, the Blade had removed her mask, showing Lizenne a familiar face. It was no wonder that Keith's father had wooed this one; Namturan Galra were famous for their beauty. Even weary from a stiff fight, she was lovely.

Lizenne dropped the packet into the kettle, smiling at the sweet scent that wafted up almost immediately. “I will not ask you your name,” she said quietly, “I'm aware of how much your group prizes its secrets. I am Lizenne, if you hadn't known that already.”

The Blade nodded. “A rogue witch of considerable notoriety; you worry Zarkon's generals greatly. I am surprised to find you running about in the wildlands like something out of our prehistory.”

“One should never do anything that the enemy expects one to. Besides, I enjoy it.” Lizenne grinned at her, showing sharp teeth. “It is wonderful at times, to revert to type where no one will point and scold. My uncles would have mass apoplexy if they knew what I was doing right now, and my mother would explode.”

“I've met them,” the Blade said darkly, “I believe you.”

Lizenne's eyebrows rose. “How much of the house did they have to rebuild after that little visit?”

The Blade snorted in amusement and held out her cup for tea. “Only a few rooms. You are very difficult to find, Lizenne. Your family knew nothing of your movements, and you leave little in the way of tracks.”

“Considering my declaration of _kheshveg,_ dear, it's only sensible to be discreet. My family and I aren't on the best of terms in any case. Is your search sanctioned?”

The Blade blew fragrant steam from her cup. “No. I have been on field assignments for years. It's what I'm best at. My son, Lizenne. Where is Khaeth?”

Lizenne poured herself a cup and sat down on a handy rock. “Piloting the red Lion, last I knew. Your boy's a hero, Blade, and he's good at it.”

The Blade nearly dropped her cup. “Voltron? He's a Paladin? I had not--”

Lizenne held up a hand. “When was the last time you checked in with home base?”

Keith's mother growled, glaring at the fire. “I have not made contact with my colleagues in more than a year. I was discovered at my post and have been evading capture since. When you found me, and had my son, I thought...”

Her voice trembled, and Lizenne's heart ached in sympathy. “I understand. I would have offered more information, but you cut the connection before I could speak. He's my friend and ally, and my adoptive nephew. He asked me to find you, adoptive sister, for his father had died some years ago. I know no more of the matter than that.”

The Blade shuddered, her face a mask of old pain and new loss. “I could not stay. Ah, gods. You have, I assume, a way to contact him.”

Lizenne nodded and sipped at her tea. “I do. He'll be delighted to speak with you. It'll have to wait until morning, however; the communicator's inside the ship, and the ship is locked.”

Her companion stared at her in disbelief. “You do not have a key?”

Lizenne grinned at her. “Drink your tea. I felt you coming, dear, and left it in the safe box before going out. I've a ship and a mate to protect. _No way_ was I going to make either in any way available to you.”

Keith's mother vented a low and rueful laugh, and drank. “Wise. If we must wait until dawn, then we must. Tell me what has been going on, Lizenne. How did you meet my son?”

Lizenne chuckled. “I actually came into that mess rather late. The root of it begins on the moon of Kerberos, in the Earth System...”

 

Modhri was a little surprised at what followed his Lady home the following morning, but he bowed respectfully and offered breakfast anyway, replenishing the platters as the two women slaked a powerful hunger, then saw to it that they both had a comfortable place to sleep. He didn't have to be told who their guest was; he could see the family resemblance between her and Keith clearly, and resolved to be patient. It was never wise to rush a Blade of Marmora. Instead, he ventured outside to where Tilla and Soluk were lounging in the sun; they looked like they had had a long night as well. He sat down between them, feeling the welcome warmth of the early morning sun on his body. Lizenne had done a magnificent job of rebuilding him, but he still ached a little in the mornings. Tilla whiffled a soft greeting and nuzzled his shoulder gently, and he patted her nose. “I see that certain things are starting to come together,” he murmured. “Was it a fine fight?”

Soluk bobbed his head with a satisfied grunt and presented his own nose for a pat. Modhri obliged him, running his hands over the fine tan-and-brown scales behind the nostrils. “She tests clean?” he asked, “secret societies do tend to take drastic measures if they feel the need to do so. Especially if they're being hunted as hard as the Blades have been.”

Tilla chirped reassuringly and nibbled at his shirt. Modhri drew in a long breath of the misty morning air and watched a flock of tikipa birds circling over the prairie, silvery feathers glinting in the sun. “We're going to be called back to duty soon, I feel. It's been good to come back here, but we won't be able to stay for much longer. Will you two follow us back into the fray, or will we have to go it alone this time?”

Soluk growled and gave him an offended look, making him smile.

“Quite right, and forgive me. The pack must stay together. It's just that I feel that individuals must be allowed some choice in these matters. It doesn't do to allow others total control over what you do in life. I've tried that, and look what it got me.” He extended his right arm, the wide scar cutting through the fur across the bicep where the new bone and muscle had been grafted on. Soluk sniffed at the scar and licked it gently. Modhri nodded at the dragon. “You have to make your own choices or others will make them for you, and those choices are not necessarily good ones. I could very easily have wound up as a Robeast, or just dead. I'm not sure which is worse. Hah. Listen to my maundering. I'm in a mood this morning, aren't I?”

Tilla rumbled in amusement and laid her head in his lap, which effectively ended the conversation.

Lizenne found him a few hours later, raiding sylra bushes for the berries that they both liked. She had brushed out her fur and exchanged her atinbuk hides for her preferred trousers and tunic, but she still smelled like wild grasses and freedom. It was a fragrance that Modhri found very attractive indeed. She still looked a bit weary around the eyes and her movements were a little stiff, but that was only natural. “My Lady,” he greeted her politely, handing her a fat pink berry. “How is our guest?”

“Still asleep,” Lizenne said, savoring the sweet fruit. “She's been badly stressed for weeks now, and last night's exertions didn't do her any good. Espionage is not a profession that lends itself to long lifespans.”

Modhri sighed. “No, it isn't. I wonder if she might tell me anything of my great-uncle Zandrus. He disappeared years ago, perhaps into the Blades of Marmora. Oh—and the ship's keys?”

Lizenne patted her pocket. “I locked down the bridge, too.”

“Sensible.” Modhri said. “She'll want to talk to Keith. I wonder how they're doing; we haven't heard a word from any of them in some time.”

“We'll find out soon enough.” Lizenne replied, letting her eyes drift over the yellow grasslands wistfully; she was always a little sad to leave this world. “They're a busy team, you know. There is so very much for them to do, and they are moving so very fast. I'm astonished that we had the time to teach them as much as we did.”

“We made time, them and us, and they've made good use of what we've given them.” Modhri dropped a few more berries into his bowl and stared at them thoughtfully for a moment. “It's possible that we shouldn't have spent this last couple of weeks without access to the newsnets.”

Lizenne shook her head. “A satellite would have been spotted instantly. I'm not opening this world up to attack. As it is, we'll have to clear out very soon; our guest was being pursued, and her enemies may well decide to become ours as well, if she wasn't successful in eluding them. She isn't sure.”

He humphed. “Well, there are ways of dealing with that. Do you think that we'll have time for lunch? The kitchen has a recipe in its files for baked fruit tarts...”

Lizenne chuckled and ran her thumb through the fine fur behind his ear. “Not with those berries. They produce a rather fearsome toxin if exposed to high temperatures. I won't even go near them in midsummer because they split and fog the whole hill with lethal vapors. It's a good thing that it's still spring here, eh? Let us go and check up on our guest.”

The Blade was still out cold in the guest cabin, and didn't stir when they looked in on her. Lizenne could feel her heartbeat, slow and steady, as her body renewed itself.

“What did you give her?” Modhri asked, very quietly.

Lizenne puffed a breath, steering him gently away from the cabin door. “A hard run, a long fight, vital information, and hantic tea. Quite a lot of hantic, actually. You gave her the first really decent meal she's had in weeks and a safe place to sleep. She may be out for the rest of the day. I'll warm up the ship's sensors; if they were chasing her that hard, she may have something that they want, and it's best not to be here if they're that determined.”

Modhri nodded. “Find out where her ship is first, and whether she armed it. If it's not too large or primed to blow we can stick it in with the shuttles.”

“Good idea,” Lizenne said, and headed for the bridge.

 

_Chimera Rising_ had an excellent sensor suite, and while it was quite able to scan nearby space for threats, it couldn't bring them more news than the fact that the near orbits were still empty and that the Blade's ship was both small and movable. A single-person scout, fast, long-range and efficient, but terribly cramped, Modhri thought to himself as he assembled the loading cradle around it. He was well-aware that he was spoiled, of course; Lizenne liked her comforts, and he was not going to dissuade her from them if he didn't have to. He made the last connection and activated the cradle, which hummed and lifted the little scout easily. Tilla and Soluk, who had never stolen a ship before, watched with interest. 

Modhri nodded in satisfaction and beckoned to them. “All right, your turn. All you need to do is get it moving and help me steer.”

In a proper shipyard, a craft like this would be moved by special drones; the dragons were quite equal in strength and a good deal brighter. They managed to get it into the  _Chimera's_ shuttle bay with only a few false starts and lashed it down with no further trouble, and when they rejoined Lizenne in the stateroom they found that the Blade had finally awoken. The woman still looked weary, but she was fully alert. The two women had been watching him and the dragons on the screens, he saw, and he raised an inquisitive eyebrow at them.

The Blade smiled thinly. “My ship alerts me if it is disturbed. Lizenne asked me not to allow it to kill you.”

Modhri bowed slightly. “I thank you for your consideration, my Lady. Do we need to leave, Lizenne?”

She nodded, indicating another screen. “Someone's sniffing around the outer planets. I'd rather we were gone before he comes too close. I've already pulled in everything that I wanted to take with us. Tilla, Soluk, are you ready?”

The two dragons chirped agreeably.

“Modhri?”

“Already packed and ready to go.”

“Good. You two, get to the envirodeck. We lift in three minutes.”

The dragons turned and scrambled out, and the three Galra headed for the bridge. Three minutes later, they were rising out and away from Zampedri and on course for Aceshla Four, a burned-out little solar system at the back end of nowhere. There was nothing out there to interest anyone... save for those who desired privacy and access to the newsnets without the likelihood of being spotted. Modhri was quick to bring up the latest headlines, and what they saw startled them all. “Ye gods!” Lizenne said, scanning through the articles, “They have been busy, haven't they?”

“Parzurak Spacehab, stolen,” Modhri murmured, “by a teludav ring—the biggest ever made. Moved right out into the middle of absolutely nowhere and later found severely damaged.”

“Zarkon's also been severely damaged. Not dead, although whether that's propaganda or not, I don't know.” Lizenne glanced at the Blade, who shrugged. “Haggar's still alive too, although she's lost most of her Druids. And has sent for the Prince. Oh, dear.”

“My people were involved as well,” the Blade murmured, indicating an image taken from a security video, showing dark-clad figures spotted and striped with pale lights. “The Blades of Marmora have cast their lot in with the Lions, as we had planned.”

“Voltron took some damage too,” Modhri said darkly, “the black Lion had to be carried away by the others. Damn. Do you suppose--”

“I'm not going to suppose anything until I talk to them,” Lizenne said sharply, “there are too many variables. The Princess may be down, too, if she was the one operating the transport ring. Teludav systems are too damned close to being magic for my comfort. Voltron itself has an aetheric component in it, one that I can't see.”

“Then we must speak with them,” the Blade said firmly, “can we do that from here?”

“With ease and alacrity,” Modhri replied, taking something small and dark out of his pocket. “Secure connection, too. If they're in range, they'll hear us.”

He pressed the button, eliciting a crackle of static, and then a faint voice that they had to strain to hear.  _“Hello?”_

“They're right on the edge,” Lizenne murmured, “Lance, is that you?”

“ _Last I checked, yeah. Where have you guys been? It's been crazy out here.”_

“If the newsnets are to be believed, it has indeed,” Lizenne said wryly, “where are you, and is everyone all right?”

“ _Um...”_ Lance's voice took on a worried edge. _“Coran says that we're in the Ubentik System, hiding in the third asteroid ring. The Castle's in one piece, but Allura's got a lot on her mind and so does Keith—we lost Shiro, and he stuck Keith with leading the team.”_

Modhri gasped. “Dead?”

“ _We don't know. I mean, we were doing great... well, as great as anyone could against Zarkon, he had a_ really _tough battlesuit, but we formed up into Voltron and managed to get a good stab in that broke it, but something in there short-circuited the black Lion. When we opened the cockpit, Shiro was gone. Not dead, just... gone. I mean, not there at all. There could have even been a negative value of him or something, but we haven't got a clue about what happened in there and the black Lion's a little weird anyway, and look, do you think we could meet up somewhere soon? You're better at poofing out of sight than we are. Maybe he poofed out and didn't know how to poof back in. Does that happen?”_

The boy sounded plaintive, nearly frantic. Lizenne didn't like that at all. “Rarely, and under very specific circumstances. Where is Keith?”

“ _Out scouting around with Pidge and Hunk. The Galra forces are really stirred up right now and we're having to lay low for a while. Why? Did you find something else for us to do?”_

“No, dear, but we encountered his mother,” Lizenne replied, “ask Coran if he knows where the Shells of Cantus are.”

There was a gurgle of surprise from the other end. _“You found his mom? Like, his_ Galra _mom? Look, we've only just gotten used to having the Marmorans in the house—thanks for breaking us in, by the way—and they're still hanging around and Allura's getting really stressed 'cause Haggar's an Altean and they aren't supposed to go around being horrifically evil all the time, and--”_

“An Altean?” It was Lizenne's turn to be surprised. “That _is_ interesting. Coran, if you can hear me over Lance's blithering, can you get to the Shells?”

There was a squawk and the faint sound of a scuffle on the other end, and then Coran's voice came through. _“Yes we can, if we move carefully. Thankfully, the Blades are willing to follow along. Grand chaps, really, very good in a fight. We can get there in maybe four, five days or so. We're a very long way out, and the battle with the Druids took a lot out of Allura.”_

Lizenne sighed. “Don't push her. It'll take us nearly that long to get there as well. We've been up to shenanigans of our own, if I'm using that word right, and we would rather not be found. Keith's mother is with us, and she was being pursued as well. I'm fairly sure that we've confused them, but better safe than sorry.”

“ _Take your time. As you might imagine, we've got worries of our own. Did you ever manage to get a look at Prince... what was his name... Lotor?”_

“Yes, if only from a distance. He's a bit of a romantic in spots, but he's going to be trouble. The fact that his father's been laid flat will either make him or break him, and either way, Haggar will not permit failure. Have strength, Coran, and when you arrive at the Shells, look for the greenest one on the scans. You'll see what I mean when you get there. _Chimera_ out.”

“ _If you say so._ Castle _out.”_

Modhri leaned back in his seat and glanced at the Blade, who was looking a little disappointed. “A double reunion,” he murmured, “it'll be efficient, at least.”

The Blade growled low in her throat. “Perhaps. Our leader will want to have a word with me about certain of my actions, but I will not be separated from my son again.”

 

Cantus was a very unusual solar system. It had two stars that were more or less the same size, but it had no planets at all. What it had instead was an enormous cloud of broken stone bubbles, each one the size of a small moon. It was far too dangerous for any sort of colonization, and only barely feasible ground for the most reckless of rare-mineral prospectors. The reason for that was readily apparent when the _Chimera Rising_ arrived.

“By the Gods,” Modhri breathed in wonder, “is that what I think it is?”

Lizenne nodded. “A Weblum, spawning. This is one of their hatcheries. She's nearly finished.”

It was an old one, thousands of miles long and a deep, iridescent green along the belly, which pulsed steadily as egg after moon-sized egg was ejected into orbit.

“I stumbled onto this system while trying to avoid a pirate-hunter,” Lizenne said nostalgically. “Damned near got eaten by a hatchling Weblum while I was at it, although it took care of my pursuit quickly enough. I stayed just long enough to find a real treasure. Here--” she tapped the controls, bringing up a full-spectrum scan of the crowded system. It looked like a vast spherical swarm of frozen bubbles in a multitude of soft colors; right along the outer edge of that swarm, however, nearly at the southern “pole”, was one that was just a little greener than anything else around it. “That's our target.”

“What's so special about it?” the Blade murmured, her topaz eyes scanning the bubble swarm thoughtfully, probably filing away this place for future use in her mind.

Lizenne's hands danced over the controls, taking them toward that one green sphere. “Every once in a while, a Weblum egg doesn't hatch. It's rare, but it happens. The worm that laid that particular egg had been eating a planet that contained a very great deal of boron, silicon, and other crystalloids and not much in the way of metals. That weakened the shell of this egg enough for the embryo to die. See the cracking?”

They had come close enough now to the great greenish sphere to see the huge fissures in the otherwise smooth surface. Lizenne followed one enormous rift down to where a tremendous triangular section had fallen away into the void, and slipped in through that opening. They flew down a long tunnel into a vast open space, and her passengers gasped in wonder as the ship's brights lit up an emerald wonderland of crystal formations the size of cities. Dimly visible in the center was a spiky, whorled knot of something dark and cold.

“This is amazing,” Modhri whispered. “And the Weblums have left it alone?”

“Weblums won't eat their own kind,” Lizenne said, parking them at a safe distance from the larger crystals. “Not even the hatchlings will bother a dead egg, although they'll grudgingly graze on each other's eggshells. Sooner or later, this system will form up some planets using all of this debris, but it's in no hurry to do so. We're safe enough for now.”

 

That sentiment was not shared by the occupants of the Castle of Lions. “How are we supposed to find them in that mess?” Allura asked, staring in amazement at the silicoid froth clustered around the binary star.

“And which one's the green one?” Hunk asked.

“Not sure. She didn't say,” Coran said, setting up a series of system scans. “Just that it would show up the greenest on the scans... hold on, running those.”

“There!” Pidge said a moment later, “Look at the southern hemisphere, right down at the bottom on the visible-light spectrum scan. It's practically glowing!”

There was a rumble from the Blade of Marmora who had been standing as unobtrusively as he could off to one side. Kolivan's presence had become necessary at one of the Marmoran bases, so he had left one of his best lieutenants and a squad of Blades to serve in the Castle as a sort of household guard, with the promise that he and his warriors would be polite and discreet at all times. The big fellow was surprisingly good at that, despite being nearly eight feet tall and built like a tank. When he spoke, people heard his voice with their bones more than with their ears. “It _is_ glowing. That is not natural. What is this place?”

“Weblum spawning ground,” Coran replied, scanning around for danger. “There were six or seven places like this known to astrogators in my time, probably a lot more. They aren't hard to discover, it's just that the discoverers have to live long enough to tell other people about it. That's the tricky bit, y'know.”

“Yes,” the Blade observed, and lifted a finger to point at something on the screen. “You will want to keep that in mind. The Weblum is still here.”

Coran yelped and tapped furiously at the controls, barely keeping the ship out of the visual range of the titanic wormlike creature lurking nearly invisibly among the eggshells to the left. Fortunately, the great beast wasn't interested in them; having just laid a large clutch of eggs, it seemed to be taking a nap.

“Whoa,” Hunk breathed. “It's even bigger than the one Keith and I had to deal with. A lot bigger. I bet that this one can shoot a beam that'd slice a planet in half.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Coran said, staying very carefully out of the beast's sight. “She's a big old girl, and no mistake! I'd say... yes, she'd have to be the biggest on record. She was probably nibbling moons before King Alfor was born. They don't die of old age, as far as anyone knows.”

“Organo-silicoid life form?” Pidge asked, sounding interested.

“Mostly silicoid,” Coran replied, “that's as much as anyone was able to find out. Nobody's ever managed to find a dead one, see, or build a lab big enough to study one in. Studying the live ones is a bit too dangerous for most folks. There we are, that's the globe we want. Bright green.”

It certainly was. It shone like a sphere of emerald in the shadows, and even Keith, who had been brooding silently in his defense-drone station, had to sit up and take notice. “Wow.”

“I'm getting a drive trace,” Coran said, bringing the spectra up on the screens. “It's them. They're around here somewhere... no, they're _inside_ that thing. How'd they do that?”

“There! That crack,” Allura answered him, “see the little chip where it branches? That has to be it.”

“Good guess,” Coran said, “It's even big enough to admit us, and with plenty of room to spare. What a lovely place to hide!”

It certainly was, although the sight of the vast verdant crystal formations within prompted Lance to snicker and then to sing, “We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz...”

“Shut up, Lance,” Pidge said, “and she's a witch, not a wizard.”

Hunk groaned. “Oh, now you've done it. Now I've got this picture in my head of her in a pointy hat and stripy socks, and the ruby slippers. Which doesn't work at all 'cause she hardly ever wore shoes anyway, and she had these two big claws per foot--”

“Shut up, Hunk,” Keith groaned, visions on broomsticks already assailing his own imagination.

Hunk wasn't listening. “--And anyway, the movies got a lot of stuff wrong. I had to read my little sister the whole series of the original books once, and Lizenne would've gotten bored with Oz after two days, picked a fight with Glinda and knocked over the Emerald City, then zapped the Witch of the West and Ozma into oblivion, teamed up with the flying monkeys, gnomes, and wheelers and taken the whole place over.”

“Hunk!” Keith protested.

“You can just see her doing it, can't you?” Hunk insisted. “They were all pretty dumb over there, anyway.”

Pidge bounced a wadded-up piece of notepaper off of his head.

The Blade had watched this entire exchange with a baffled expression on his scarred face. “What are they talking about?”

“Some work of fiction or other,” Allura said wearily, casting an exasperated glance at her Paladins. “Having them as part of the Alliance will be interesting, to say the least.”

“Yes,” the Blade said, although he sounded a bit dubious as to the wisdom of that inclusion. “We will wish to speak with the witch. The Blade of Marmora can always use locations such as this, that do not invite company. Perhaps she knows of more.”

“You'll have to wait your turn,” Allura told him. “We all have questions for her.”

They found the _Chimera Rising_ with no trouble, it being the only source of light within the green globe, and once the Castle had established a stable docking position, the lights went out, plunging the sphere into darkness. This was only prudent; there was no point in making it easy for any uninvited guests. Despite this, a tunnel was run between the _Chimera's_ main hatch and the Castle, and the visitors invited to come aboard. Keith was a bag of nerves, although he tried to hide it; his mother was coming, along with possible answers to a whole lot of pressing problems. It was almost a relief when the tunnel doors slid open to allow—oops—the dragons in first. Tilla and Soluk were _very_ happy to see everyone again, and Keith soon found himself being whiffled and licked with enthusiasm, which is a bit overwhelming when it's coming from something as big as a prairie dragon.

“Sorry about that, they insisted on going first,” a very welcome voice spoke up over the _gronk_ ing sounds the dragons were making, and the laughter of those receiving their attentions. “I don't argue right of way with these big louts.”

Lizenne had come out of the tunnel, followed by Modhri and a tall Galra woman in a Marmoran uniform that he recognized instantly; that face had haunted his dreams for weeks now. She looked around warily at those assembled; Keith pushed Soluk's head away and would have gone to meet her, but the big Blade—Bantax, Keith thought his name was—approached her first, or tried to. He'd only gone two strides before Tilla got in the way and started sniffing at him. Bantax, surprised, stood rigidly while she did so, and everyone went quiet when she hissed. Bantax jerked away, but not fast enough to keep her from catching his arm between her teeth. She didn't bite down, not quite, but he was forced to stand still while Soluk sniffed at his back. Soluk focused on a spot just under the left shoulderblade, and growled like a thunderstorm. Lizenne was on it immediately.

“Ah,” she said, laying a hand over that spot. “Took part in that fight with the Druids, did you?”

Bantax grunted, trying to pull his arm out of Tilla's grip and failing. “Yes. I caught a glancing blow. There was no wound.”

Lizenne nodded. “No, but it did lay a hex on you. Been feeling a little odd? Hearing voices? Getting odd urges?”

He gave her a surprised look. “Bad dreams, and moments of... of despair. I have been resisting them.”

“Yes, and quite successfully. I hope you find a lady of your own one day.” Lizenne told him. “Can't let your traits go to waste. Brace yourself, this is going to hurt.”

She chanted a few soft words before yanking her hand away from his back, much as one would when pulling a burr off of one's clothing. Bantax didn't—quite—scream, although he went pale under his fur and wheezed a harsh breath. When Lizenne opened her hand, she showed them a spitting, jagged shard of livid purple light, englobed in a filmy sphere of gold.

“You're lucky that it didn't have more time to build on this,” she told the gasping Blade. “This is a compulsion, which could have driven you quite, quite mad. Does he have any more on him, Soluk?”

Soluk gave Bantax another thorough sniffing; thankfully, he sneezed and giggled. Tilla let go of him and licked his face gently in apology.

“Consider yourself lucky, Blade,” Modhri said, watching in grim satisfaction as Lizenne crushed the bit of bad magic out of existence. “I had three fully-formed ones in my mind alone, and more in what was left of my body.”

Bantax stared at him for a long moment, and then at Lizenne, and at the dragons. He dipped a shallow bow in their direction with a faint, pained smile and said, “We shall have to have a long talk soon. There are a great many things that we would like to learn from you.”

“I will be delighted to teach you all sorts of things, sir, but right now there are other things to discuss. First and foremost--” she jabbed a finger in Keith's direction, “--you need to acquaint yourself with your mother, and she with you. Find a quiet corner and do that now before something stupid happens. Don't object, sir Blade! It might have been a year or two since you've seen her, but _he's_ waited all of his life. Wait your turn! Everybody else will come up to the lounge where we may at least be comfortable. Allura, what the hell has been going on around here?”

Hunk smiled happily. “It's great to have you back, Scary Space Aunt.”

Lizenne smirked back. “It's great to be back, Delightful Space Nephew. Now, shoo, all of you!”

 

Keith had the interesting view of three Humans, two Alteans, two Galra men (one of whom could bench-press a hippo), and two dragons (either one of whom could eat a hippo), all of whom were trying to talk at once, being herded into the lift by one slim female. Privately, he wondered if Zarkon had made himself emperor in an attempt to not get bullied by his own aunts all the time. There was a faint sigh behind him, and a soft-voiced, “Khaeth.”

He turned and looked at the stranger in dark clothing, who was gazing at him with a sort of hungry wistfulness. They just stood there for a few minutes in awkward silence, unsure of what to say. Finally, the Galra woman murmured, “You look so much like your father.”

“How did it happen, Mom?” Keith asked quietly. “Why did you come to Earth? Why did you leave?”

She smiled, but there was no humor in it. “I should ask you if you have the right to that information. You had my knife when I saw you last. Have you earned the right to keep it?”

Keith gritted his teeth, throttling down on a rush of anger. _Not Human,_ he reminded himself, _and a Blade of Marmora as well. Knowledge, or death._ “I have. They put me through hell to get it.”

She nodded. “It must be that way. You may hate them for that. I do.”

“I'll hate Zarkon instead, who made things that bad for them,” Keith growled. “What happened?”

“We were searching for the Lions,” she said simply, “we had been searching for them for centuries, for if we could find them, we could keep them from the Emperor, perhaps even presenting some of our own as Paladins. We knew that Alfor had hidden them all over the most remote reaches of the universe. We didn't know where, and Alfor had taken that knowledge with him when he died. I was one of the searchers. I found one, although not in the way that I had hoped.”

“The blue one,” Keith breathed. “Why didn't you call home?”

“Zarkon's forces were searching as well, and they knew of our own attempts. One of their scouts pursued me as I was scanning that small red planet. I eluded him, but not before he had damaged my ship. I managed to land my craft on Earth, but not well. The ship was destroyed. Very nearly, so was I. Your father found me and took me back to his home.”

Keith suddenly felt a pang of homesickness stab through him, keen as the blade he wore on his belt. An image of the shabby cabin, with its cracking plaster and sagging furniture flashed before his eyes; here he was, surrounded by technology and comforts beyond the imagining of most of the rest of his race, and he would have given up almost anything to flop down on his own couch again.

“He treated my wounds as best he could, fed me and gave me time to recover,” his mother murmured softly. “I was... less than polite at first, but he showed great patience and gave me someone to argue with. Later, when I was able to walk long distances again, he took me to the crash site. There was nothing there that I could use. It took me two years to make even a short-range communicator from the available technology at that time. I was marooned forever on that primitive planet, or so I'd thought.”

“I'm sorry.” Keith muttered.

“I wasn't.” He heard her low chuckle and was surprised to see a rather naughty smile on her face. “Your father was handsome, and strong, and kind. I had despaired of finding anyone like him long since. If I was going to be stuck on an alien world for the rest of my life, then, by all the gods, I was going to enjoy it.”

Keith blushed hotly, and he ran one hand through his hair. “Did he... did you... you know, the thing with the ears...?”

She laughed. “Oddly, yes, and he responded, although not to the extent that Galra men do. We learned to compromise. We also went exploring, and found the Lion's cave. The inscriptions, although they did not come alive for us, were unmistakable. What an irony, I had thought, and it became our secret. It would have done your people no good at all to know of it, not with the Imperial patrols sniffing around. I was pregnant with you when my makeshift comm started picking up radio chatter that did not come from Earth.”

Keith swallowed hard. “Dad never talked about you. I don't think he ever really forgave you for leaving.”

“I had no choice,” his mother whispered, “I stayed until you were weaned, but could stay no longer. The patrol ships were already sending down scouts to search. I caught one and took his ship. The Blades of Marmora _had_ to know. You must understand why.”

“I do.” Keith drew in a shuddering breath. “But you could have come back! You could have taken Dad and me away with you--”

She was shaking her head. “I could not risk it. During the time that I had spent on Earth, two of our bases had been discovered and destroyed. We lost over a quarter of our number. We had no room, no time, and no energy to spare to look after an untrained alien and a baby. You were safer on Earth than I could have made you anywhere else. I had always intended to come back, Khaeth, but the time was never right. In the end, the Lion did it for me.”

Keith nodded, remembering the events of the past year. It had been a very long, very strange trip. She drifted forward, her arms reaching out to him. “I had never dreamed that it would be my son who would find the red Lion, much less be accepted as Paladin. I had not dared to dream of anything for you at all. I had hoped that you would live in safety when I dared to hope for anything. And now you are leader...”

Keith groaned and flung himself into her embrace. She held him close, going down on one knee to wrap her long arms around his shoulders. “I don't want to be leader, Mom,” he rasped, burying his face in her shoulder. “That's Shiro's job, and now he's gone. He was like my big brother, and he was a lot better at it than I am.”

She rested her face against his hair, breathing deep of his scent. “None of us are good as we would wish to be. I am still proud of you, my Khaeth. I am proud of you for who you are and what you have done. I am proud of what you are going to do, whatever that may be. I failed you, and for that I may never forgive myself. I have found you now, and no one will ever change that.”

Keith sniffled. “Don't say that, Mom. Every time a long-lost relative says that, they wind up dead a little while later.”

His mother snorted. “Ah, yes. I spent a great deal of time watching that sort of thing on television while living with your father. Garbage, child. I am not a Human. I am a Galra, and a very highly-trained warrior at that. If anyone tries to come between us again, I will kill them and make you a gift of their skulls.”

Keith chuckled damply. “No thanks, I've got too much stuff on my shelf already. I'll settle for having my own Space Ninja Mom instead.”

“I'll keep the skulls, then,” she said, squeezing him gently. “Tell me, then, if you can bear to, what happened to you and your father after I left?”

Keith wiped at his face with one sleeve. “There's not much to tell. Dad did his best, but he never really did all that well. I got through elementary school all right, but when I was seven, I woke up one morning and he didn't. The coroner said that he'd had a heart condition. Uncle Jake took me in, but he was military, and they kept sending him away on missions. They eventually sent him on one that he didn't come back from. I sort of grew up on the army base. That was where I met Shiro, actually; the sergeants kept sticking him with babysitting me. He and Uncle Jake got me a scholarship in the Galaxy Garrison Academy, 'cause I tested well in flight sims. I was pretty good at it, but I tended to talk back to the instructors a lot. Eventually, I got wrapped up in a project that they didn't assign to me, so I finally got expelled when I told them to screw off once too often. They didn't like it when I called bullshit on their calling the failure of the Kerberos Mission 'pilot error'. Shiro didn't make mistakes.”

“What project?” his mother asked.

“Finding the Lion. I could hear it calling, even though it was Lance's, not mine.” Keith looked up at her curiously. “Maybe it noticed you and Dad when you found its cave. Neither of you were quite right, but together...?”

She huffed thoughtfully, stroking his hair. “It is possible. I was pregnant when we found it. No one knows exactly how much of an influence those things have on their surroundings, or how much they perceive. Perhaps Lizenne might tell us more.”

“Yeah. I need you to tell me one more thing, Mom,” he said, looking a little ashamed. “Dad never told me your name.”

She stared at him in surprise, her expression growing pained. “I should not have left him. Ah, gods, but I had no choice. I am Zaianne, Khaeth.”

“Like the Queen of Namtura that Lizenne told us about?”

Zaianne smiled. “I was named after her. It's not uncommon on Namtura, where I was born. Perhaps one day I will take you there to meet my side of the family.”

“That'd be nice,” Keith said. “How 'bout we go upstairs and join the others?”

Zaianne nodded and flowed to her feet. “I think that that would be a good idea.”

 


	2. A Pride of Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: Lions, Dragons, and Bears, oh my! Well, okay, no bears. But lots of the other two! A slightly longer chapter this time, due to just not being able to find a good place to break the events. We hope you enjoy it! And as always, feel free to comment or give constructive criticism. Every bit of love motivates us!

Chapter 2: A Pride Of Dragons

 

They arrived in time to hear Modhri and Lizenne laughing merrily; Hunk and the others were describing their trip to the mall, and apparently they'd had more fun than Keith had.

“A mall cop?” Modhri asked between chuckles. “Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah,” Pidge said with a grin, “little pudgy guy on a hover-scooter. I think he thought that we were pirates. To be fair, Coran had made us dress up like pirates, but we ditched the costumes the moment he was out of sight.”

“Coran didn't do his homework,” Lance continued, “and he had all the money, too. But, hey, it's a mall! You can't walk around a mall without shopping, it defeats the whole purpose. So we sort of split up, looking for those replacement lenses, but we all got sidetracked. Hunk got stuck in the food court, I think that Keith got into an argument with a cutlery salesman, and Pidge found this little hole-in-the-wall shop that had stuff from Earth. They had some flashy game systems that she just _had_ to have.”

Pidge glared at Coran. “And no money.”

Coran sniffed. “I'll admit that I hadn't been thinking. If it makes you feel any better, the funds I did have didn't do me any good either—I should have remembered that Altean money's of no interest to anything other than a museum at this time. I had to trade my floating cube for those lenses. Ah, the sacrifices one makes for success!”

Pidge sniffed. “We sacrificed our dry socks. Did you know that aliens like to throw spare change into fountains, too? It's a good thing that nobody'd been scooping them out regularly. We hit a lot of fountains.”

“Every fountain in the building!” Lance said, “And I think I scared some kid when I got the last coin, but Pidge got her game system. And a cow. We weren't expecting the cow. Hunk, what did you do with the cow?”

Hunk waved a dismissive hand. “I put it in storage. The thing was some sort of robot, and if I can't get milk or steak out of it, I don't want it in the kitchen. Maybe we can use the parts for something else later.”

“Yeah, maybe. It made a pretty good getaway vehicle.” Lance rubbed reflectively at his forehead. “Up to a point. Then, when we got back here, Pidge remembered that the Castle's not compatible with Earth game-tech.”

Pidge made a rude noise. “We managed. I got Hunk to help me put together an adapter that works well enough. The problem is actually getting a crack at it! These guys--” she flicked an accusing finger at Bantax, “--keep hogging the system. They really like the _Mystic Sword: Legend of Abraxus_ game.”

Bantax gave them a slightly embarrassed smile. “It's got a good storyline and the characters are enjoyable. We don't get to have a lot of fun in our line of work.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Pidge rolled her eyes. “All the same, guys, my games, my rules. If Atanka doesn't stop trying to hack the level-up system, I'm going to electrify the control glove.”

Bantax nodded. “I'll tell him.”

“You do that. We didn't really have much time left for games after that, because one of these guys showed up out of the blue.” Pidge sighed. “We need to upgrade the security systems on the docking bays. He slipped right in before we knew what was going on. We could have really used the dragons while we were trying to catch Ulaz, but Shiro managed to cool him down before he hurt anybody. Allura was really upset, though, and when we visited their base to join forces properly... hey, Keith, come here and tell us what happened next! You never got around to it, and Shiro wouldn't say anything either. Hey, is that your mom?”

There was nothing for it but to introduce her to his team; they were gratifyingly happy to meet her, although Allura was a little stiff still, and Bantax gazed at her disapprovingly until she scorched him with a glare that nearly baked his shadow onto the floor. Hunk, of course, gave her a big hug that surprised her very much. Lizenne smiled at her consternation. “Yellow Lion's Paladin; it picked a winner this time. Any relation to the Great Lady herself, Zaianne?”

Zaianne shrugged. “Very distantly. She had seven daughters, and they had many children. Still, my family is proud enough of the connection, however thin. It is a line that has had many heroes in it.”

“That it does. Speak, Keith, if Bantax here will allow it.”

“I cannot.” Bantax rumbled, although he had the grace to look apologetic about it. “Our Oath must be upheld. I may say that he did very well in the Trials. We would have inducted him into our number properly, but he has other work that must be done. He may keep his mother's blade.”

Keith scratched the back of his head with a grim smile. “It wasn't easy. I don't recommend it guys. They test your mind as well as your strength and skill, and they're not nice about it. It has to be that way, 'cause they're up against even worse odds than we are.”

“Yeah, I'm still sorry about Ulaz, too,” Hunk said sadly. “We wouldn't have gotten out of there alive without him.”

Zaianne saw guilt flash across Allura's expression and narrowed her eyes dangerously at Bantax. “What happened?”

Bantax sighed. “Ulaz was the one who released Shiro back to Earth. All the indicators were correct, Zaianne. Ulaz confirmed it. He had made himself known to the man, and took action where needed. He sacrificed himself to prove our faith, destroying a Robeast that would have devoured Voltron entirely.”

Zaianne hissed. “Have we lost anyone else?”

Bantax nodded gravely. “Antok, in the battle with the Druids. Thace died to disable Parzurak, that it could be moved to our chosen battleground. I am sorry.”

Keith swallowed hard at the memory of that brave Galra, and at the look of agony on his mother's face. “I was there, fighting alongside him. It was an honor to do so.”

“He was my brother,” she rasped. “Your uncle.”

Any Human woman would have broken down in tears at that point, but Zaianne was a Galra and they took blows of this nature differently. When she looked up, her eyes were blazing with fury. Her voice, however, was as cold and hard as the core of a comet. “Lizenne. You told me that you had declared _kheshveg_ against Haggar and Zarkon.”

“I have,” Lizenne said, watching her intently. “Sendak as well, but he's peripheral.”

“You have also claimed my son as your nephew. This makes us sisters.”

Lizenne's topaz eyes lingered on Keith for a moment. “That is so.”

Zaianne took a deep breath, and then bowed to the witch. “I beg the privilege of _ghren-khesh'vaaht._ Let my hand join yours in destroying these enemies.”

Lizenne smiled and held out a hand to the angry woman. “I so grant the privilege of _ghren-khesh'vaaht_. Let two hands succeed where one hand would struggle.”

Zaianne took that hand without hesitation. “My strength is yours.”

Their joined hands crackled golden for a moment, making Zaianne gasp. Lizenne only smiled. “My strength is yours. And a few tricks extra, if you're willing to learn. You've talent, madame, all tied up in your other skills, but it's never too late to take on a new hobby.”

Zaianne stared at the tiny golden sparks hovering around her nails, and then nodded decisively. “I am not only willing, but eager. I was never a strong witch; I sublimated what small power I did have into my training.”

“If nothing else, you'll get to help me chase Bantax and his boys around the training deck.” Lizenne grinned. “He's asked me to teach them what I've taught the Paladins about fighting Druids. _Tahe Moq_ battle-magic is surprisingly simple. All it takes is focus and energy, and you've got that.”

Bantax was starting to look rather nervous. Lance leaned over to Keith and whispered, “Super Magic Ninja Space Mom for the win!”

“Makes me happy,” Keith whispered back, “the harder she is to kill, the less I have to worry about her.”

 

Lizenne glared up at the black Lion, which stared blankly into the middle distance as only an ancient alien artifact could. “I don't know what you expect me to do with this thing, Allura,” she said to her companion, “I've researched it, of course, from as many sources as I could find, but I can't speak to it. Not only am I quite useless with machines, even this one, but it is deliberately keeping silent. You'd be better off asking Pidge to get a reading.”

“Pidge has tried,” Allura said, gazing up at the Lion's impassive features. “Her bond with the green Lion is strong and even the Castle is willing to show her a few things, but she cannot get any of the other Lions to speak with her. She has better luck with cracking Galra technology. I was wondering if you could use the Lion somehow to find where Shiro has gone. We need him.”

“As I used Keith's knife to find Zaianne.” Lizenne sighed. “It is possible, maybe. I can think of two separate ways to do that, but both are dangerous.”

“Perhaps this will help?” Allura said, offering her a crescent-shaped object, black enamel chipped and the grip worn from long use. “The black Paladin's bayard. We found it in the cockpit.”

Lizenne stared at it for a long moment, then took it gingerly from Allura's hand, hissing between her teeth as though the metal stung her fingers. “Not really. Shiro had this thing for only a very short time. Zarkon had it on his person almost constantly for ten millennia. It reeks of him.”

Allura looked a little disappointed, and then intrigued. “What can you tell me about him, then? I know that he and my father were both Paladins, but I had little to do with Voltron during my childhood.”

Lizenne hummed thoughtfully, turning the bayard in her hands. “You'd be more aware of its early history than I would, since it was built in Alfor's youth. The official Histories state that it began as a very large meteor, a chunk of nearly-pure hantalurium that put a rather large hole in the landscape of Golraz, Zarkon's homeworld. Due to tensions between interstellar civilizations at the time, it was decided that the rare metal should be used to make a super-tough battle system for both defensive and offensive situations. It is unclear just who designed the blueprints.”

“Yes,” Allura said, “that is correct. The genius who designed it was kept under such a cloak of secrecy that even Father never knew who it was, but the result was magnificent. Self-repairing, self-maintaining, even self-aware and capable of making its own decisions—and acting upon them if there was a need to do so! Quite aside from its near-invulnerability, it was a work of art.”

“Still is,” Lizenne observed. “Unfortunately, however, it was ultimately a tool. A tool that was used frequently for oppression as much for defense. There are records in the archives of many races that have a great deal to say about what its early Paladins were forced to do with it, and little of it was pleasant reading.”

“I'm aware of that,” Allura agreed. “It was stolen and misused several times before it came into Father's possession. He and Zarkon helped to steal it that last time, as a matter of fact. They and the other Paladins fought to right the previous wrongs of their predecessors for many years.”

Lizenne nodded. “About twenty-seven Altean standard years, give or take a few. The reports that I read were a little spotty. They were a fully-bonded team, and so deeply connected to their Lions that they got uncomfortable if they were separated for more than a day or so.”

Allura giggled. “Father once said that he and his teammates practically brushed each others' teeth, they were that close. And then Zarkon betrayed them.”

Lizenne shrugged. “That's also unclear. The official History states that _they_ betrayed _him,_ although the reasons behind that are a bit of a mystery. I know that there was a very large upheaval going on in Galran politics at that time. Zarkon was a minor member of the ruling House of Golraz, and that they weren't on the best of terms with the High Council of Galran Prime. The Council had become filthily corrupt at that time and were making demands of the colonies that were both unfair and unwise. At the end of that fight, Zarkon had become Emperor, and all of his rivals—more than a thousand of them—were dead. Our politics tend to be rough, I'm afraid.”

“I'm not sure what happened. Father wouldn't talk about it, but it had upset and frightened him. Zarkon had gone mad, he'd said, and couldn't be allowed to pilot the black Lion again. There was one cadet who was almost ready to take up that duty, but I never met him.” Allura looked up at her hopefully. “Can't the bayard tell you anything more?”

“Give me a moment.” Lizenne bent her head and whispered a few faint words over the bayard; there was a faint golden glimmer around the object, then a sharp _pop_ and a curse as the spell blew up in Lizenne's face. The witch rubbed irritably at a singed eyebrow. “No. The bayards are more than just weapons, they are the keys to the higher-grade battle-systems of Voltron itself, and the God Of All Cats here is unwilling to share its secrets. What I can tell you is this: The black Lion is the command module, the joining force for bringing together four other, very different temperaments into a cohesive whole, and the gestalt intelligence is mighty. It needs its pilots to interact with the universe for it, to see those things that it cannot, and to react to rapidly-changing situations that would baffle a mechanical mind. The whole system was meant to blend the best traits of living persons and machine efficiency into something that was greater than the sum of its parts. That Lion sitting before us there has powers that neither you nor I can fully understand.”

Lizenne passed the bayard back to Allura, rubbing at her hands as though they ached. “Zarkon made a decision that was not agreed to by either the other Paladins or those who commanded him. He betrayed his superiors, betrayed his team, and betrayed the Lions. His own Lion. Idiot. Did he really think that it would let him get away with that?”

Allura stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Zarkon went mad because Voltron tore a chunk out of his mind.” Lizenne was angry now, not at anyone in particular, but for the stupidities of ages past. “He demanded that it do something that went directly counter to its nature, and it punished him for that. His fellow Paladins couldn't do it—how could they? Hurting him would have been hurting themselves at that point. All they could do was to take the Lion from him, although they would have had to kill him to get the bayard back. Zarkon didn't want Voltron because it could have furthered his power. He wanted it back because he was incomplete, and driven to recover what it had taken from him. For ten thousand years. I wonder if even he is able to recall what he's searching for, these days.”

“That's horrible!” Allura exclaimed.

“Yes, it is. And that's probably why Voltron decided to take this batch of Paladins from a technologically primitive world, that had no connection whatsoever to the political squabbling of the galactic power groups.” Lizenne propped her fists on her hips and favored the Lion with a rosebush-wilting glare. “Care to explain further?”

The Lion activated its force field.

“ _Bad kitty,”_ she hissed in a tone that would have sent a battle-hardened warrior whimpering into a corner. “We're going to have to do this the hard way. I'm going to need something that belonged to Shiro and the help of everyone here who knew him. And to speak to Hunk and Coran about catering and possible medical backup.”

“What? Why?” Allura asked in alarm.

“Because if we want him back, or even to know whether or not he's still alive, we're going to have to sift through a large portion of the universe. That takes work.” Lizenne growled something impolite under her breath at the Lion, who ignored her. “A great deal of very hard work, which will leave us exhausted at best.  _ Tahe Moq _ was never intended to be a solo discipline.”

“You didn't need help to find Keith's mother.” Allura pointed out suspiciously.

Lizenne grunted and turned to face the Princess squarely. “Oh, I had help. I had Soluk backing me up along with her own blade, a blood relative, and the full knowledge that, dead or alive, she was still within the local temporospacial matrix. Something downright metaphysical happened to Shiro, something that none of us understand. I have  _ nothing _ of Shiro's, not so much as a hair from his head, and he could be quite literally anywhere. Or worse, nowhere. I am going to need a very great deal of help to find out anything at all.”

Allura took a deep breath, pulling her courage around her like a cloak. “You will have that help.”

 

“Before we begin, you must give your consent—freely, and without feeling pressured into it. If any of you have even the faintest of doubts about this, do not hesitate to refuse. This is going to be dangerous, and any wavering of resolve could easily lead us into disaster.” Lizenne gazed sternly around the room. “There is no shame in refusal. Those who do will join Modhri on the support team, and that will be vitally important work. I am aware that aside from the dragons, none of you have been trained for this, and there simply isn't time for formal teaching. The Paladins have already had some of the basic groundwork laid in and I will be using a familiar metaphor, and, Blades, given your own training, you should be able to pick up the gist of things easily enough. However, you must remember one thing— _don't fight it._ It will feel strange. You will see and experience things that will not be familiar to you and some of it will seem threatening. You might have some difficulty in readjusting afterward. Allura, Coran, not you. You're the only ones who can pilot this ship. If the worst happens or if we get some unlooked-for visitors, we're going to need you alive and well on this side of reality.”

Coran looked relieved, but Allura shook her head. “We're well-hidden here,” she objected angrily. “I want to help. Don't be paranoid!”

Lizenne gave her a stern look. “Allura, it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. Kindly remember that Modhri and I are traitors to the Empire. The Blades of Marmora have been hunted ruthlessly for hundreds of years. The bounties on your own heads, the Castle, and any portion of Voltron itself would set up any successful bounty-hunter for at least three lifetimes. You're the only one here who can operate the ship's teludav system. We simply can't afford to risk you.”

Allura gave her a dirty look, but had to concede.

Lizenne heaved a sigh and took her place on the big cushion in the center of the room, picking up the scrap of coarse fabric that lay folded on the floor before it. Shiro hadn't been in the habit of picking up mementos, but for some reason he'd kept the tattered dull-purple shirt that he'd worn for over a year as a prisoner. “Choose, people. This is your last chance to opt out.”

The dragons moved first, laying down on either side of her like scaly sphynxes, and the Paladins took up their positions on the floor cushions around her only a second or two later. Lance dithered a little as he settled down. “I still feel like I should be wearing my armor,” he muttered.

“It wouldn't do you any good,” Lizenne replied, “not on this side of things, and it'll only get in the way if the medical team has to restart your heart. Sit still.”

Lance groaned and shifted his legs on the big floor pillow. “Sorry. These things aren't very comfortable.”

“It's better than collapsing and cracking your head open on the floor.” Lizenne replied. “Trust me on this, that's no fun.”

In the end, fully half of the Blades, including Zaianne, joined the group on the floor, mostly those who had observed Shiro when Keith had undergone the Trials. The others were there to offer their strength and skill as backup, for which Lizenne thanked them sincerely.

“All right,” she said once they'd all gotten comfortable. “We will begin this as we began certain other lessons. Lights off.”

The room immediately went dark. There were a few nervous rustles here and there, but the Paladins were comforted by it—they'd done this before many times.

“Clear your minds,” Lizenne's voice drifted out of the darkness, “calm your hearts. You are of the pack, and the pack is as one. There is nothing here that can hurt you, save your own silliness. Feel your packmates near you. They are part of you. You are as one.”

The familiar words calmed even Lance's fidgets. The Paladins slipped into the familiar trance state, aware of each other, and aware, painfully aware, of the vacancy in their midst.

“The pack leader is missing,” Lizenne whispered, “he must be found. He has touched the hearts of those not of the pack. Other packs will aid you in your search. They know him, respect him, and feel his loss as if it were their own. Feel us around you.”

Keith shivered. For the first time, he became aware of Lizenne's aura, and that of others. She was a chip taken out of a summer sunrise, hot and golden. The two dragons were blue-eyed mountains. That pack-bond was old, and stable as bedrock. Beyond them, he felt a kindred of sharp shadows with burning hearts, his mother among them, watchful and potent, cloaked in silence and secrecy. Their kin-bond was as the strength of the tide, which cannot be stopped.

“The packs are allied,” Lizenne murmured, “we have one purpose. Three packs are as one pack.”

It was so. Keith breathed in their scents and felt his own packmates do the same; he felt their heartbeats, the heat of their bodies, their iron-hard resolve.

“I have the scent,” Lizenne said firmly. “Let the pack know this scent, one and all.”

Keith breathed in, and everyone else did too. Human male, adult, tang of alien metal. Old pain. Hidden fears. Homesickness. A powerful will to survive. Compassion. Kindness. Responsibility. Leadership. The pack had the scent, and mourned that its source had gone missing.

“The pack knows the scent,” Lizenne said softly, “the pack will listen now as I open the gate that will allow us to follow it. The pack will take its shape from my words.”

Lizenne began to chant quietly. The words were odd, indistinct, but they hung on the dark air like a golden mist. The mist spread around them, soft and fragrant, smelling of midnight air and moist grasses. Slowly they came clear as the mist thickened around them, and Keith felt himself and the others begin to flow and change. It felt very odd, but he took care not to fight it, and he watched himself in dim amazement as his arms lengthened and grew reddish-tan scales. The fingers shortened and became clawed paws, his back and sides erupted with spikes, a long spiny tail extended itself, and when he lifted his head to look at the others, he felt the weight of his horns and viewed his companions out of six sapphire eyes. He could not help but stare around himself in astonishment. There was Pidge, smaller than he was and golden-green. Hunk was snorting in surprise, huge and powerful and dark ochre-yellow in color; smaller and slimmer bluish Lance was dancing in circles, chasing his own tail. Soluk and Tilla, who were easily twice the size of everyone else, nudged him sharply to call him to attention. The Blades were there, shadowy-gray and dotted with pale-violet scales along their backs and limbs. Lizenne was instantly recognizable, a burnished gold with eyes that blazed like arc lamps. Lizenne lifted her horned head and sniffed the air, then let out a long, resonant hoot—the call to hunt.

Tilla and Soluk answered that call, as did the rest of them, for the pack was as one. The scent of the missing one was on the air, faint but present. Lizenne's haunches surged and hurled her forward, and the pack followed her into the night.

 

Modhri ran another scan and sighed. “Full trance,” he told the others, “there is no turning back now.”

“Their hearts are beating in perfect unison,” Allura said, staring at her screen. “That shouldn't be possible.”

Modhri shrugged. “Where they are now, possible and impossible don't mean much. Chesk, did you manage to find the extra blankets?”

Chesk was somewhat shorter than his fellow Blades and built like a fireplug. He'd been gazing worriedly at Pidge, who had beaten him six times at _Super Carpocalypse Crashtastic 3_ and was rather fond of her. “Yes, I put them over there with the rest. I'm surprised that you're not with your Lady.”

“I can't be,” Modhri said grimly, tapping his temple with a finger. “I fell into Haggar's hands, and she and her Druids broke my mind into a number of small pieces. Lizenne mended that and put a ward in to keep anyone from fooling around in there. It also prevents me from being able to participate in spellcrafting. Even if she were to remove it, I'm far too fragile for this sort of work. You've seen my scars, Chesk. Those are only the surface reflection of what was done to me.”

“I thought that whole chunks of you had to be replaced,” Coran said.

“Inside and out.” Modhri replied. “I wasn't a person anymore when Lizenne rescued me. I was a thing, and a broken thing at that, and coming back from oblivion was very painful. If there is any way that I may help her see Haggar dead at her feet, I will do it.”

Chesk studied him curiously for a long moment. “Nearly wound up as a Robeast, then?”

“Yes.” Modhri's eyes were cold.

“Wait, what?” Allura exclaimed. “The Robeasts were people?”

“Or animals, yes, but mostly people.” Chesk replied, a little surprised at her. “You did not know this?”

“No! How was I supposed to know?” Allura's face twisted in anguish; Haggar was Altean, and the thought of one of her own kind doing such things sickened her. “They certainly didn't act like people.”

Chesk shook his head. “By the time Haggar's done with them, they aren't people anymore, if they're lucky. Shiro would have been one too, if Ulaz hadn't released him in time.”

“Lizenne thinks that Haggar's trying to create something like Voltron,” Modhri said, “a blend of man and machine that is greater than either part. She keeps forgetting that free will is a major part of both components.”

Chesk chuckled darkly. “What good is a weapon that you cannot completely control?”

“No good at all, to something like her.” Coran shuddered. “Mind you, that sort of thing wasn't too uncommon, once. I hate to say it, Princess, but our own civilization did a little experimenting on the shady side of cybernetics back in the bad old days. It's possible that the Robeasts are an outgrowth of that science.”

Allura would have replied, but the monitors beeped; the collective heartbeat was speeding up, and somewhere in the darkened room, someone growled.

“What's going on?” Allura said in a small voice.

Modhri peered at the readouts. “They've found something. Or something's found them. Or they've hit a tough spot. I can't tell you for sure.”

 

Bantax growled. Something had found them, and was pacing them stride for stride a respectful distance to one side. The pack noticed this, but the Leader and Elders did not otherwise react, and so Bantax was required to keep his doubts to himself. It was an odd, fragile-seeming thing anyway, all twig-thin attenuated limbs and rail-thin body, bearing a jeweled staff that resembled an enormous sewing needle as long as it was tall. Hunk eyed it with fascination, and heard Tilla rumble. _Known quantity,_ the Elder said, _Puranak hermit-monk. No threat. This is not the only visitor to these roads that we shall meet._

It was strange to hear Tilla's voice coming as words that he could understand, but it was only right that he could now comprehend her so clearly. The rest of the pack heard her too, and turned their attention back to the road.

And what a road it was! A golden road of _Tahe Moq_ , the pure raw life force that threaded the universe together, he remembered that much from the strange dream that the Elders had sent him. Lizenne had led them directly out of the Castle and onto a tiny thin catwalk of it, a path that had lead from both the ship and the core of the dead Weblum embryo and out through the crack in the shell. Once outside the emerald sphere, it had broadened out enormously, touching each and every live Weblum egg like stepping-stones before stretching off into the stars. There had been hundreds of branches from that point, but Shiro's trail was unmistakable; the Leader led them aright, and each surging stride brought them closer to their goal. Stars flashed by like streetlamps, and some small part of Hunk's mind tried to calculate how fast they were moving; an amused glance from Soluk made him give it up as a bad idea. On this side of reality, all things were metaphors at best.

The road led through solar systems as well, touching on every world and moon, every satellite and space station, every traveling ship that held life. When they ran through those unsuspecting waypoints, they saw wavering images of those places shimmering like mirages all around them. At intervals, Hunk saw the yellow prairies of Zampedri again, and the shore of a purple sea. A volcanic badland followed that, a desert, a rainforest, a vast stretch of flat pebbled plain dotted with clusters of huge luminous mushrooms, and cities. Many cities, full of many peoples. The crew decks of starships. A great Weblum worm, gnawing busily on half a planet. The people they passed ignored them for the most part, but there were a few, here and there, who watched in astonishment as the pack galloped by. Some tried to follow. Others fled. The pack paid them no mind and ran on.

Hunk had never been terribly enthusiastic about exercise. Between his large build and his appreciation for good food, he found sustained physical exertion difficult. Oh, the training he'd received as Paladin had helped somewhat—it had become easier to fit into his armor, at any rate, but he'd always felt that Humans weren't really built for running. This was an attitude that his high school coaches had despaired of, particularly the ones who'd tried to lure him into American-style football. Hunk blew them all a mental raspberry now, for he had been right all along. The dragons, these great spiky tiger-lizard people were a hundred times more suited to it than even the very best Human marathoner, and he felt privileged to be wearing their shape right now. He was tireless, strength flowing like a river, keeping pace with the rest with unbelievable ease.

They were forced to come to a halt at one point, however, for the road had broken. Lizenne let out a howl of rage and loss that the pack echoed, for beyond the snapped-off highway lay a vast emptiness. In the center of that emptiness hung a great dark sphere that held not so much as a single spark of life. It had once, that was plain enough, and recently; there was a thin webbing of _Tahe Moq_ still, barely more than threads, that shifted and changed shape constantly. Hunk blinked and focused his primary eyes. There were tiny glinting points in motion around the sphere. It had been a planet, and those points were ships, scavenging whatever they could find from the ruins of what had been a thriving civilization. _Kheshveg,_ the Leader cried, and the pack concurred. Such atrocities as this would no longer be permitted; the time of reckoning was close. The Leader chose a path around the horrible empty place and the pack continued on.

 

Coran flinched where he sat, unnerved by the hollow moan that Lizenne and the others had made.

“What was _that?”_ Chesk asked, feeling badly out of his depth. It had been a dreadful sound, full of fury and woe.

Modhri shook his head. “I don't know. Whatever it was, they didn't like it, but they aren't in trouble. Their heartbeats are steady and they aren't in distress. Whatever surprised them earlier didn't push its luck.”

“Have you done this before?” Allura asked curiously, “Monitored a trance like this, I mean?”

Modhri sat back and stared pensively at the still figures in the darkened room. “A few times. Lizenne occasionally uses this technique to get a look at places where it's too dangerous to go in person. Tilla and Soluk will usually accompany her. I've never watched this big of a group before. Is the kitchen crew ready, Chesk?”

Chesk nodded. “Yes, although we're going to be eating leftovers for a while.”

Modhri snorted. “No we aren't. Trust me on this. We'll need to get the first course in here the moment they awaken or they might resort to cannibalism. They'll sleep like stones for a few hours after that, and then they'll need to eat again. This pattern will repeat for the rest of the night, and they'll probably be exhausted and sore the following day.”

“Exhausted, I'll grant,” Coran said, “I knew a mystic or two myself, back in the day, but sore?”

“Oh, yes. Look at my screen.” Modhri indicated a muscle scan of the nearest entranced Blade. “Lizenne's favorite self-metaphor for this sort of search is that of a dragon, for the speed and power it lends her. She's shared that with the others, I think. Watch their joints; see the muscle tremors, and the slight flexion in the tendons? Somewhere they are running, using their bodies in ways that they aren't used to. Lizenne's toned up those parts of herself over the last few months, but the Paladins and Blades are going to be as stiff as sheets of hullplate in the morning. There may also be injuries, if they encounter something dangerous in there.”

“What do you mean?” Allura asked.

Modhri sighed. “Galra aren't the only people who can work magic, and a fair few of them don't like us much. Haggar doesn't like having competition, you see. There are also apparently predators of some sort that actually inhabit that plane, and activity like this attracts them. Six weeks ago, I watched over Lizenne as she performed a trance-quest and saw a three-inch-long laceration appear on her shoulder. Fairly deep, too, and I had to clean some sort of poison out of it. Then she woke up as I was putting the bandage on and bit me.”

Chesk hummed thoughtfully. “I hope she apologized for that.”

“Profusely. Fortunately, I had a plate of roasted tannack at hand, which tasted better than I did.” Modhri smiled. “I will say it again—the moment they wake up, feed them. Particularly the dragons.”

They looked at the dragons. Tilla and Soluk were large enough to eat any of the others in the room in a couple of bites. Coran swallowed hard. “Maybe we should just get their portions in there now, ahead of time, sort of thing?”

Modhri nodded. “Might not be a bad idea.”

Modhri's monitor beeped; the collective heartbeat was speeding up again.

 

Lance danced nervously and tossed his head, snorting at the creatures blocking the way. They weren't large, but there were a lot of them, and even he was prepared to admit that fighting demon rabbits made of black ice might not be a good way to spend the afternoon. They smelled odd, too, a combination of rosemary and linseed oil that made his sinuses prickle, and their voices sounded like a rattlesnake convention. Fortunately, they were more confused than anything else. The mixed nature of the pack was apparently very unusual. Soluk was speaking to them in a long rolling grumble, trying to explain what was going on, but these... people... were extremely upset that most of the pack were Galra in dragon's clothing. They'd encountered the Druids before and hated them, and were having real trouble with the concept that these Galra hated the Druids too.

Lance growled impatiently. They didn't have time for this! He bounced forward with a roar, brandishing his spikes and hissing fiercely. _Clear off,_ he demanded angrily, _we're not interested in you! The sooner we find Shiro, the sooner we can get Voltron assembled again, and then we can blow the Druids up all you like. Go away!_

The demon-rabbits stared at him with eyes like embers, long ears twitching. _Voltron?_

Keith came forward to stand at Lance's shoulder. _Yes, Voltron. We are the Paladins. These are our allies._

Hunk and Pidge had come forward as well, the Blades and dragons forming up around them. Lizenne had dropped to her haunches and her jaws gaped in a silent laugh. _I lead this search,_ she told the surprised creatures, _for I have the scent. The Elders lend us strength. These others have no love for the Emperor and his magi. See the truth, Zoralans! To stand in the way of heroes can only be folly._

The creatures rustled and rattled, burning eyes casting reflections on each other. _We remember Voltron. There is one missing,_ they rasped.

_That is the one we are seeking,_ the pack answered.

Ember eyes closed, and one by one the demon-rabbit shapes began to evaporate into nothingness. One of them lingered long enough to speak again.  _He whom you seek is guarded. Be warned._

Lizenne bowed her head in thanks. _We heed your warning. The pack will remember this._

The last Zoralan vanished, and Lizenne led them on.

 

Everybody stared at Lance.

“Did you know that Humans could roar like that?” Chesk asked, sounding impressed.

“No, I did not.” Coran replied. “Modhri, what's going on?”

“I have no idea, but they're off again.” Modhri glanced at the readouts again. “Whatever it was, it didn't want to argue with him.”

Allura shook her head. “After hearing that, I wouldn't either.”

 

Once again, the pack was forced to come to a halt, this time to rest. They had come a very long way and their breath was coming hard now. The scent was still strong; they were close to the source, but the way had become difficult. The golden road branched and re-branched hundreds of thousands of times, and from this angle it looked almost like a sheet of lace, or perhaps a tunnel-spider's web. _Major population cluster,_ someone murmured.

_We're near the heart of the Empire now,_ Lizenne confirmed,  _hundreds and hundreds of living worlds, shipping routes, and space habitats and stations._

Pidge chuffed in dismay.  _We weren't anywhere near those when he vanished! That was the whole point of moving Parzurak. What's he doing all the way over there?_

_I don't know, but I hope to find out._ Lizenne stretched out her shoulders and back.  _Be wary, all of you. Zoralans don't give warnings lightly, and we may well find ourselves under attack._

_The fact that they warned us at all is a good sign,_ Keith said, baring his teeth at the road ahead,  _if he's under guard, he has to be alive. There's no point in guarding a dead man._

_Yes and no,_ Zaianne said grimly, sniffing at the air.  _Whatever comes, we will be ready._

_We are ready,_ the Blades of Marmora rumbled.

_Let's go,_ Lizenne said, turning to follow the scent again, and the others followed.

Pidge breathed deep of that scent. It  _was_ getting stronger, and her sharp mind calculated that the trail led right into the very center of that mass of roads. Getting there wasn't going to be easy, however; not only did the road twist and zig-zag all over the place, but they were watched. She could see the sentinels, as a matter of fact, perching here and there among the junctions in the roads like torches on lightposts, each one casting their own spot of luminescence over a section of the web of paths. There were hundreds of them, mostly glowing a bright pale purple.

_Galra witches,_ Tilla told her,  _loyal to the Emperor. Most of those will not challenge us; the pack is too strong for them. Some few, however, may wish to test our courage._

_What do we do if that happens?_ Pidge asked.

Tilla flashed her teeth in a predator's grin.  _You are a dragon. You are a Lion. You are a hero. We will fight. What else?_

The pack heard this, and the pack concurred. Pidge felt those words sink into her mind and gathered her determination. Tilla was right. They were so close! Nothing would stop her now. As they pounded past, the purple flames flickered and went out or flitted away in terror, leaving the road clear. A brighter flame dropped down onto the road at one point and flared brilliantly, showing a silhouette with hand upraised at its heart; Bantax and another Blade trampled it without slowing down.

Other flames shot bursts of energy at them from a safe distance, but the dragons were agile, dodging these missiles with ease. It wasn't until they were nearly at the center that they encountered something worse.

The pack slowed at the sight of it squatting athwart the track like a pile of seawrack cast up by a storm. It was big, quite as large as the two Elder dragons put together but nothing like as wholesome, and it stank. It stirred as they approached, lifting a skull that was somewhere between a raven's and a tyrannosaur's in appearance, five fiery slits in the bone serving as eyes. Strange sigils of burning purple had been inlaid into its skull and vertebrae that glimmered evilly in the half-light. It heaved itself up on a dozen or so bony limbs, long whiplike tail lashing; it wore the ragged remains of a robe.

_What is that thing?_ Keith asked in horror.

_Druid,_ Lizenne said grimly,  _they undergo certain changes to attain that rank. That's another reason why I left home when I did. I was something of a late bloomer where it came to my powers at that time, and I couldn't quite dampen my aura enough to throw Haggar off of my trail. I had no intention of winding up as one of those things. It will attack anything that gets too close, and it will call for help if we let it. Be careful of that beak and the graspers, it's much faster than it looks._

_Can we avoid it?_ One of the Blades asked.

_No, it's already spotted us. It'll follow us if we try to go around it, and we do_ not _want that thing coming up from behind! Remember that you are dragons now, and those spines all over your hide are meant to discourage attacks. Dodge the arms, ram the legs, and snap the neck when it comes within reach—up by the base of the skull, by preference. Do not waste time on any other part of this creature._

The Druid raised its head and screeched a challenge in a voice like the fall of civilizations, clawing at the air with its mismatched paws. The pack studied the monster, reached a consensus, and charged.

 

Bantax let out a bellow that echoed off of the walls, and the monitors began beeping frantically. The collective heartbeat had spiked and was pulsing fast in an incredible effort. “They've met something that won't back down!” Modhri shouted over the noise. “Watch for injuries, and treat them as they appear!”

As he spoke, one of the Blades let out a yell and a long wound opened up on his back, spraying blood. Long it might have been, but it was shallow, and he'd sounded more outraged than hurt. Chesk moved immediately to clean and dress it, noting the twitching muscles all up and down his fellow's long back. Somewhere, his friend was fighting with everything he had. The sounds of sharp grunts and panting breath filled the room, and others cried out as cuts appeared on their bodies. One yelped and toppled over.

It was at this moment, of course, that a different alarm went off. “That's the proximity alarm!” Allura shouted, “Someone's approaching the Castle!”

“Get to the bridge!” Modhri commanded, “You too, Coran! Chesk and I will handle things here.”

Hunk groaned as his sleeve split, red blood coursing down his arm. Allura hesitated, concerned for her Paladin.

“GO!” Modhri roared, “If we lose the Castle, we lose everything!”

The two Alteans fled, heading for the bridge at a dead run. They were met there by three other Blades, two tall males and a female that Allura hadn't had the time to learn the names of. “We have company,” the taller male, a dark-purple Namturan said grimly, “he's been trying to jam our sensor field, but we've linked the Castle's with both ours and Lizenne's ship. It's too wide a range for him to hide from, thankfully.”

Allura and Coran dashed to their stations, taking control of the drive and weapons. “Who is he and how did he find us?” Allura demanded, “Is there anyone aboard the _Chimera?”_

The shorter male, one of the hairless, scaly fellows from Kedrek, gestured a negative. “No. Lizenne locked her ship down and left it on 'autodefend'. I made a study of Hanifor-built ships. It can look after itself. As for who that is or how he found us, we don't know yet.”

“Hold on, I'm trying to get an image,” Coran said, his fingers dancing over the screens. “Come on, you miserable _tuaggol_ , show yourself. He's a hard fellow to spot, isn't he? Let's try the ultraviolet scanners... aha! Got 'im!”

The female, a frost-and-pale-purple Simadhi, hissed in sudden anger. “I know that ship. Ghamparva! Alert the others! We have Ghamparva here!”

The Kedrekan spat a vile curse and hit the ship's public-address comm before Coran could, broadcasting this warning all over the Castle, while the Namturan headed for the docking bays at a dead run.

“An old acquaintance, eh?” Coran asked.

The Simadhi bared sharp teeth at the screen. “You could say that. When the Emperor first became aware of the Blades of Marmora, he incepted the Ghamparva, an order of elite hunter-killers to track us down and destroy us. They are brutal, far more so than his other soldiers. Any Blade who falls into their hands will suicide rather than allow them to interrogate him, if there is no chance of rescue. We must take that ship before it discovers the Castle, or it will call the nearest Imperial Fleet down upon us.”

“We will aid you,” Allura declared, “how can we help?”

The Simadhi smiled at her. “Put up the shields and start pumping out radio hash. Block all communications channels and knock down some of those big crystals on top of it if you need to, but have a care! We are many; if we can disable that ship, we may be able to take one or two of them alive. We must know how they were able to follow us here.”

The Blade sped off, leaving the two Alteans with a job to do.

 

Keith sat on his haunches, gasping for breath. Druids didn't die easily on either side of reality. The first one had fallen fairly quickly, but it had called in two others before Zaianne had snapped its neck. Those had been stronger, and the pack had suffered for it. No one was dead, thankfully, but nobody had come away unscathed. Even the two Elders were battered and bruised, and one of the Blades was lying on his side wheezing painfully; his ribs were cracked from a heavy blow. As he watched, Lizenne snuffled at his injured flank and spoke a few words over him that Keith couldn't quite make out; a stream of gold passed from her and into the Blade, and he shuddered and struggled to his feet. Healed, Keith realized, not fully but enough to continue on. She turned to the others, casting her eyes over the battle-weary dragons. _Just a little further,_ she called to them, _we're almost there. Take a moment to rest, but we must finish this._

Keith would have preferred to take a month. He was desperately tired and he ached all over. A large warm presence loomed close by, and he leaned gratefully against Zaianne's flank. She nuzzled his head comfortingly and scanned around with watchful blue eyes. _The others tell me that many Druids died while Voltron fought the Emperor,_ she murmured quietly in his ear. _Now they have lost three more. They will not harass us again, I think. Haggar will not risk what few she might have left._

Keith rested his head on her shoulder, relaxing with a long sigh. _Assuming that she doesn't come out to play with us herself. Lance? Pidge? Hunk? Are you okay?_

_I'm all right,_ Pidge said gamely, _just a little bruised._

_Cut shoulder,_ Hunk said, _I don't think it's too bad. I've got a few other nicks here and there, but they've stopped bleeding._

Lance rolled over on his back and played dead. _I've been better. Wow, those things were nasty! One of them caught me a rake down my leg. I hope that won't leave scars._

Hunk nudged him over and had a look at the two long scratches near the base of his tail. _They look worse than they are, I think. It'll just make sitting down difficult for a while._

Lance snorted. _Just my luck. I finally get a real battle scar, and it's in the one spot where I can't show it off._

Pidge giggled.  _ Sure you can, if you don't mind mooning your audience. Or if you get a girlfriend. I know that Helenva's been giving you some interested looks. _

Lance yipped and rolled over. _Helenva? You mean that big Marmoran lady, the one who's nearly white and can break the training-deck robots over her knee without hardly trying?_

Hunk grinned with a side glance at Keith. _Yup. And now that she knows that Humans and Galra can work things out just fine..._

_I am definitely going to have to remember to ask you lot for a gene-sample or two,_ Lizenne said, and the Paladins realized that the others had been listening in; no few of the Blades were laughing at them.  _The fact that two alien bloodlines_ can _blend so successfully is remarkable and worthy of study. Got your breath back? Good. Let's go._

 

The Ghamparva craft seemed more interested in the  _Chimera Rising_ than anything else, Allura noticed. It was still keeping its distance, sliding around the crystal formations as though it were stalking the big blue-green ship. Allura had moved the Castle behind a vast spire of green stone as stealthily as she could manage, and there were at least ten little Marmoran ships lurking nearby. For the moment, the  _Chimera_ was bait. Noisy bait; somehow, they'd managed to convince it to spout static and white noise across all communication channels, and it sputtered and made rude noises at everything around it.

“Like the angamol beasts of Vardop II,” Coran murmured tensely, “that trick their prey into attacking them by insulting their mothers. Surprisingly effective.”

Allura couldn't help but puff a laugh, even though her nerves were stretched tight as guitar strings. “You're making that up,” she said.

“No, I'm not.” Coran flashed her a smile. “One of my cousins kept one as a pet. It used to drive his neighbor's surgoxen absolutely crazy. The universe is a pretty weird place, when you get right down to it. Fun, though. Whoops! There it goes!”

The Ghamparva had made up their minds, it seemed. The ship lunged forward, tractor beam locking on to the  _Chimera_ and hauling it away from the forest of emerald spikes that Lizenne had parked it in. Almost simultaneously, a flock of Marmoran craft streaked in and started firing on the much larger ship. Taking that as her cue, Allura raised the Castle's shields and began spewing jamming fields as powerfully as the ship could produce them. As if in response, the  _Chimera_ came awake with a roar and fired its starboard jets, slewing the Ghamparva around to one side and forcing it off-balance. It bounced off of a skyscraper-sized crystal with a  _whang_ that shook the entire egg, causing the tractor beam to flicker out. Allura took advantage of the enemy's confusion to toast off its drive tubes with a few well-placed plasma bolts. Allura smiled as she watched tiny figures force open a hatch on the damaged ship. Despite her earlier misgivings, she'd grown rather fond of the Blades and didn't like the idea of others hunting them down and killing them.

It was over very quickly for the Ghamparva, although they'd fought fiercely; three Blades had to be taken down to the medical section and four others had minor injuries. More importantly, they'd captured the ship's captain alive. He hung limply between two of the largest Blades, quite unconscious and likely to stay that way for some time.

“You wouldn't happen to have a dungeon on this ship, would you?” One of them asked with a wolfish smile. “It's traditional for terrestrial palaces, I know that much.”

“Not really,” Coran had to admit. “King Alfor didn't really go in for that sort of thing. His father Angbard, on the other hand, knew of a few fellows that had to be kept locked up now and again, if only to keep them out of trouble. We've a few holding cells that should do the trick.”

“Will they?” Allura asked dubiously, eyeing the prisoner with deep suspicion.

Coran tugged on his mustache. “Princess, if they could hold my uncle after he'd been into the numvill, they'll hold this chap with no trouble at all. Especially if we break out some of the heavier restraints.”

 

Their final destination made no sense.

_Parzurak Spacehab?_ Keith demanded, even as they charged toward it over the golden road.  _What is he doing in there? Zarkon didn't steal him, he was too busy getting stabbed!_

_I don't know what's going on,_ Lizenne called back grimly,  _but this is where the scent leads. He's somewhere in the center of all of that, somehow. Hopefully, we'll get some answers. If we're lucky, they'll even match up to a few of our questions._

It was a bizarre experience to approach the huge construct in this way, running easily from ship to ship, right up into the spacehab's shuttle bays without any living person the wiser. Once inside it was simplicity itself to surge up level after level, sometimes going right through ceilings and blast doors as if they were no more substantial than mist. As if the pack were ghosts. There were Sentries and soldiers everywhere, but not a one of them saw them. When they paused to get their bearings, Lance attempted to bite one of them, only to have his jaws pass harmlessly through him. The guard never noticed. Tilla snorted at him to remind him of his business, and then they carried on.

Eventually, they came to a huge archway with a large, darkened room beyond; lines of purple light pulsed down the walls, converging on what looked like a catafalque, and a huge and baroque contrivance hung from the ceiling above the slab like a chandelier. Dimly visible within was a hooded figure seated by its occupant, half-collapsed over it in exhausted slumber. _He's in there,_ Lizenne told them as the pack slowed to a confused halt. _That's Zarkon on the slab, and Haggar beside him, and... now, what is that?_

Something enormous moved in the shadows. A pair of golden eyes opened, and a volcanic growl shuddered through the air. The pack scrambled backward as a vast creature shouldered its way through the arch toward them, fangs glinting in the dim light. _Oh,_ quiznek _,_ Hunk groaned, _it's a lion!_

It was an impossibility. It was a beast of living metal the color of black iron, muscles like great cords of steel cables moving as smoothly as silk beneath the burnished hide. Its mane was fine polished-steel wire, and the great eagle wings that spread from its shoulders were feathered with sword blades. Its claws were great heavy sickles, its eyes were burning suns, and when it roared at them, the very fabric of reality quivered.

_Not just any lion,_ Lance said, backing away,  _it's_ the _Lion. The Black Lion. Isn't it supposed to be in the Castle?_

_You can just bet that I'm going to check when we get back,_ Keith said, baring his teeth at the legendary beast.

Lizenne leaped forward, snapping at a slashing paw that was quite as large as she was; both of them missed, which was just as well.  _Oh, no you don't,_ she snarled angrily at the great cat,  _we've come too far to be sent away now. We need him, you miserable pile of parts, you and your own pack need him alive, present and active! What are you trying to pull here, or to mend? You'll have no joy from those two stale reprobates in that room, I know that. Produce him, cat! Where is Shiro?_

The Lion roared defiantly and pounced; Lizenne dodged that and darted around to nip at its heels. _Bring him out, Lion! I'll not cease my efforts until I have what I came for. Either the man himself, or answers from that man. You are not an acceptable substitute._

The Lion snarled, whirling around to claw at Lizenne, but she darted directly between its rear legs and bit it sharply on one toe. _You owe your packmates this, and their Paladins. Have they not served you well? The others will not speak; how dare you silence them! Summon Shiro from wherever you've put him, beast, you'll have no peace until you do._

The Lion screamed in exasperated fury and whirled again, lunging forward to snap at the racing dragon. Once again it missed, and Lizenne's teeth locked on to the end of its tail. _Three times I have said it, and three times I demand it,_ the others heard Lizenne say over the Lion's startled yowl, _where is Shiro? Bring him forth!_

The great tail lashed, flinging Lizenne across the floor, her claws striking sparks from the decking. She tumbled, but struggled back up, panting and furious. The Lion gathered itself to spring, but suddenly she was not alone; the Paladins had joined her, fangs bared, and the Lion hesitated.

_That's enough,_ a familiar voice said, and a figure limned in gold formed at the Lion's feet with arms outstretched.

The Lion groaned and backed away, and Shiro turned to face them, wavering and indistinct, flickering in and out of view. He looked well enough, although he seemed to have lost his armor. Or not. Every time his image faded out, it faded back in while dressed differently, from armor to his usual black bodysuit, to what may have been formal robes. He smiled at them, and that was the same in all of his appearances.  _I can't come back right now,_ he told them,  _there's something that I have to do here, something important. I'm sorry, but there isn't much of a choice. I'll come back once I'm finished, but someone else will have to pilot the Black Lion while I'm gone._

_Shiro, exactly who is going to be able to do that?_ Keith shouted, his words bitter on the air.  _You were the only one qualified for that!_

Shiro cast a glance up at the Lion, who had settled on its haunches, sharing a glower with Lizenne. It glanced down and rumbled at him.

Shiro chuckled, the sound curling through the air like smoke. _I'm sure you'll find someone close to hand. It'll do it the same way the other Lions did it—lay a hand on the shield. It'll drop that for its Paladin. Don't expect to be chosen, Lizenne._

Lizenne barked a derisive laugh. _I wouldn't fly that cat if Zarkon himself gave it to me for a birthday present. Were you given a choice in this, Shiro?_

He sobered. _Yes, I was. The same choice all of us were given. Go back to the Castle. I can't stay any longer, and neither can you._

Shiro looked away as though someone had called him, and faded out as his fellow Paladins cried out in protest. Lizenne looked up at the Black Lion once more, and sneered at it. _I sincerely hope that you know what you are doing, beast. There is no replacing that man if you get him killed._

The Lion made a faint _mumph_ noise and vanished back through the arch. Lizenne heaved a huge sigh and said five sharp words in a language that hadn't been spoken aloud by anyone else in over ten thousand years.

 


	3. Aftermath and Adjustment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you SO MUCH to those that leave comments and kudos! It warms both our hearts that people enjoy our writing!

Chapter 3: Aftermath and Adjustment

 

Lizenne and the others awoke with agonizing suddenness, parched, starving, and exhausted. Fortunately, some amazingly wonderful person had left huge bowls of food and water near to hand, and they fell upon these with feral growls. Modhri and Chesk, weary from their own efforts, watched in mild amazement as enough food and drink to feed twice their number vanished almost instantly. “They'll want more,” Modhri murmured, gauging the strength of those appetites.

“They'll burst!” Chesk said, but stood up to help his companion anyway.

“They've just spent more energy in one spot than they have in the last month altogether,” Modhri told him, waving a string of server drones into the room, “just be glad that nobody's comatose, or dead. Oh, dear. Help me keep Hunk and Tilla separated, will you? I don't want them fighting over the same chunk of meat, and watch your ankles around Pidge. She's got a nice set of teeth for an omnivore.”

Even with the warning, Chesk wasn't quite vigilant enough, and his startled yelp made Modhri smile. “Just wave one of those fried seland sticks under her nose. It'll taste better than you do.”

Chesk did as he was told, and later found two neat arcs of small bruises adorning his ankle.

The second course was nearly gone when some of them started collapsing; Chesk wanted to go to them, but Modhri held him back. “Not just yet. Some of them will still be awake, and all of them still think that they're dragons. It's not safe to touch them until they're fully asleep. After that, Zarkon himself could dismantle the Castle with a can-opener and they wouldn't notice.”

A little while later, Allura looked in to see the two Galra men running medical scans on a room full of unconscious figures, and applying first aid where necessary. “Is everyone all right?” she asked.

“More or less,” Chesk replied, securing a bandage. “Nobody's seriously injured, but Thavan's ribs show some bruising. That's odd, because I'm sure that they were broken earlier. Everybody's going to be very sore. Were you able to handle the Ghamparva?”

Allura nodded, kneeling down to inspect the nearest sleeper. “We took the ship with no trouble, although some of your colleagues were hurt during the process. They captured the captain alive. I'm told that Bantax will want to speak with him.”

Chesk gave her an evil smile. “Yes, yes he will. How nice of them to bring him back a treat! I hope you've got the prisoner well-anchored down; they're very well-trained in escapology.”

Allura felt a mild pang of regret that she'd never met Coran's uncle. He must have been a remarkable fellow, if the contents of the restraints locker were to be believed. “Trust me, he's going nowhere. How long do you think we'll have to keep him?”

“Not long. We don't draw out those little discussions like some we could mention.” Chesk stretched out his shoulders with a grunt. “They tend to be noisy and a bit messy, but they're short. We'll take care of the cleanup for you.”

Allura gave him a hard look. She didn't like the sound of that. “I'm fairly sure that there are better ways to question him.”

Chesk shrugged. “Oh, there are. It's just that we don't always have access to them. It's amazing what you can do with a knife, and we've _always_ got a knife on hand. We'll worry about it later. Is she all right, Modhri?”

Modhri was sitting in the center of the room, cradling Lizenne in his arms and looking a little worried. “Bruised and exhausted, but otherwise fine. She is my Lady, however, and I won't be happy until she's up and bossing everyone around again. The Paladins are fine, Allura. A few nicks and cuts, but nothing that a little time and a hot soak won't cure. Hmm. Parts of the Castle are going to smell funky for a bit, I'm afraid. All of these people are going to need a hot soak to loosen up those muscles.”

 

Just as Modhri had said, they slept like the dead for three hours, woke up just long enough to devour another huge meal, and then flopped back down to sleep again. Bantax did try to fight the urge to sleep, but he only managed to stay upright for a few seconds before collapsing. This process was repeated a few more times, and it wasn't until halfway into the following day that any of them were capable of saying even one coherent word.

That word was spoken by all four Paladins at once, and it was “bacon.” Modhri had arranged for a mountain of tanrook buns that kept everybody quite busy for fifteen crowded minutes. After that, the air was full of grunts, groans, and assorted curses as they discovered the effects of their exertions.

Hunk moaned, rolling a shoulder and wincing at the sting of his recent wound. “Ow. Ow, ow, _ow._ I haven't felt like this since Dad rented me out to that pineapple farmer. Lance, someone cut your pants off.”

“I noticed,” Lance replied in a pained voice, feeling his bandaged posterior with careful fingers. “How's your shoulder?”

“Could be better. Pidge, you okay?”

“All over bruises. I look like that cow robot! Keith?”

“Pretty much the same, plus some scratches. Mom?”

“I'm alive and nothing's broken, but very sore,” Zaianne hissed between her teeth as she heaved herself into a kneeling position. “And I have this terrible feeling that I should be wearing scales. Lizenne, what happened?”

The witch was munching on one last tanrook bun and staring grumpily into the middle distance. “You saw most of it yourself. I'll share the finer details with everybody when we're in a state to discuss it. At the moment, I'm too busy convincing myself that someone hasn't stolen my tail, and I need a bath. Modhri, dear heart; Chesk, you both did magnificent work. Convey my heartfelt thanks to the support staff as well.”

“Will do, m'Lady,” Chesk said, gathering up empty platters.

Soluk yawned enormously and licked his ear.

 

Later on, the lounge did indeed smell faintly of damp hound and exotic spices, but nobody noticed this because the tale of their journey was fascinating those who had not participated, particularly the last part. Pidge's description of the Black Lion was almost a work of epic poetry, and it surprised no one that Lizenne had tried to bully it, too. Modhri had fondly called her arrogant and prideful again, to which she fully agreed.

“But why was it guarding Zarkon?” Coran asked. “And what was Shiro doing there?”

“Because both Shiro and Zarkon are the Black Paladin.” Lizenne leaned forward, elbows on knees, rubbing at her eyes. “The poor silly beast can't fully break its bond with either until one of them dies. It _likes_ Shiro a great deal, but Zarkon, mad as he is, has held that bond for far longer than normally possible. And now we're going to have to confuse it further with a third. Time. That fool cat sent Shiro not only through the Mindscape, but through time. There is no way that I can summon him back. He'll either come home of his own accord or he won't, and there is nothing at all that I can do about it.”

“So, who gets to pilot the Lion, then?” one of the Blades asked.

“The person for whom it drops its shield, of course.” Lizenne glared at her hands. “Not me, naturally. I worry it. Anyone else on this ship may try. Voltron makes no distinctions of race, gender, or age. Good luck to the person it chooses, I say, and keep that tricky creature under your eye at all times. So, what's been going on while we were busy?”

Helenva, the tall Simadhi female, flicked a sharp smile at Bantax. “Oh, nothing much. Just a visit from the Ghamparva. We took care of it.”

Bantax's head snapped around, his huge body tensing up. “Ghamparva? Here? Report!”

Helenva gave them a quick rundown of the brief ship battle, and Bantax had an ugly smile on his face when she told him that they'd gotten him a present. “Take me to see our illustrious captive,” he rumbled ominously, “I could use an amusement.”

 

Their illustrious captive was not amused. He was, in fact, wide awake and spitting-mad, full of threats and defiance. The Blades had made much use of the heavier restraints available to them, which made the Paladins really wonder about Coran's uncle. It was remarkable that he was able to keep his nerve in the face of a large crowd of interested Marmorans, all of whom were watching him in the same way cats watched mice.

“Hark at him, will you?” Bantax rumbled when the Ghamparva had run out of breath. “I've heard all that before, of course. We'll see what he says once we've skinned him.”

The prisoner bared his teeth in defiance. “I will say nothing! No amount of torture will get me to talk! Do your worst! You will all be hunted down and destroyed, you filthy traitors! You will be given to Haggar and the Druids, you will become Robeasts to further the greatness of the Empire!”

“Not today.” Bantax pulled out his knife and tested the edge. “I think that we'll start with--”

“Guys, _no,”_ a voice interrupted him. “I've got a better way. Get him out of all of that.”

Bantax and the Blades looked over their shoulders in surprise. The prisoner craned his head around to see who had spoken, but the crowd of dark-clad Galra hid the speaker from him. “What? Why?” Bantax asked.

“So I can reach his important bits, that's why. Get that helmet off and blindfold him, then lay him face-down on the floor. Just do it, and don't argue with me.”

The Blades looked at each other, shrugged, and set about following orders, pulling the slightly dented helmet from the prisoner's head. A native of Kedrek, their unseen commander noted, with the heavy jaw and cheekbones, leathery skin, small sharply-pointed ears, and dark scales on his chin characteristic of that people. A wide strip of dark cloth was jerked over his eyes and tied securely, and she watched as the screaming, thrashing prisoner was unshackled and wrestled down onto the floor. It took Bantax and three of his strongest men to hold him down.

“Good, just like that.”

A slight figure eased carefully through the forest of long legs and straddled the prisoner's broad back; he snarled and tried to buck her off. “Right, then,” Pidge said, clearing her throat and sliding her fingers behind his ears, finding the soft, raised areas of the nerve knots at the bases easily. “Hey, sweetie,” she said in a considerably more girlish voice than usual, “you're cute.”

The prisoner gasped. A shudder ran through his entire body and he went limp in the Blades' grip. A vague, misty smile spread itself over his face. “M... my Lady?” he asked in a faint, trembling voice.

“Mmmmaybe,” Pidge said with a coquettish giggle. “We've only just met. Tell me what you've been up to, okay? What do you do for a living?”

“I... I serve the Emperor as Ghamparva, my Lady. I hunt resistance groups and other traitors to the Throne. It is a great responsibility.”

“That's interesting. I bet you've chased down a bunch of them,” Pidge said, rubbing her thumbs over the nerve knots; they felt a bit like good suede. “They look very dangerous.”

The Galra whimpered in pleasure and leaned his head into her hands. “Oh, very dangerous. Very, very dangerous. I will find them all if you wish it, my Lady. I was pursuing a particularly bad one just now, very skilled, murderous. She stole something very valuable from the Emperor's witch, and she wants it back.”

“Really?” Pidge asked, glancing up at Keith's mother. “How'd you do that?”

“I have informants. A whole network. They spotted her ship for me, and I placed a tracker on it. If she could lead me back to her base, I could have burned out an entire nest. Even so, she was difficult to trace. I was close, so close...”

He groaned and pulled at Bantax's grip, but subsided when Pidge pressed her fingers into his nerve knots again. The Blades watched in horrified fascination as she continued to interrogate him, shifting nervously whenever she moved.

“Did I look like that when she rubbed me behind the ears?” Keith whispered to Lance.

“Oh, yeah,” Lance said, “big stupid smile and all.”

Bantax wasn't about to object to a tactic that was working, and he would occasionally lean over and whisper suggestions into Pidge's ear. Eventually, even he ran out of questions to put to their captive. Pidge sat back with a sigh. “Well,” she said sadly, lifting one hand and reaching into a pocket, “it's been nice talking to you, but there are things I've got to go and do. Sorry, sweetie.”

“What?” he yelped plaintively, “No! Please, no, my Lady, please don't stop... don't go! Please, just let me see your face...!”

Despite the stomach-churning things that this Galra had freely admitted to doing, Pidge felt guilty enough to pat him behind the ears again. “It's okay, I'm right here,” she said, and then jabbed the ampoule that she'd fished out of her pocket into the back of his neck. He grunted in surprise, and then sagged unconscious to the floor.

Pidge looked up at the Blades defiantly and said, “I hope you got all of that because I'm not going to do this again.”

“My Lady, that was indecent,” Chesk said in a voice that quivered with outrage.

She waggled a finger at him, which he flinched away from. “So is peeling someone's skin off in thin strips. My way was quieter and didn't make a big mess all over the floor. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and wash my hands. And don't even think about cutting his throat!”

That was addressed to Bantax, who also flinched guiltily, but shot back, “We can't very well keep him.”

“That's all right, sir Blade, I can remove his memories,” Lizenne said cheerfully, “I'll even teach Helenva how to do it, since she's got some talent for the art and no principles at all. It shouldn't be at all difficult, since Pidge has loaded his system with somnolene. You may then steal or destroy his ship as you please, and then drop the poor fool in one of the seedier districts of Lenotar Six, preferably without his pants.”

Hunk gave her a suspicious look. “Why without his pants?”

“Funnier that way, plus it might actually get him a lady of his own to dote on.” Lizenne said with a naughty smile.

Pidge gazed thoughtfully at her audience. “What does a Galra look like without his pants on, anyway?”

Lizenne laughed and patted Modhri's behind. “Generally, he's either leathery or furry. Some have tails.”

Lance smirked and cast a sidelong look at Keith. “So, Keith, leathery or furry?”

The only answer he got was a whack upside the head.

When Pidge left the room, the Blades gave her plenty of space. Hunk watched the crowd of seven- and eight-foot tall, thickly-muscled, elite warriors backing warily out of her way and sighed, and cast a narrow look at Lizenne. “You're right. Galra women do have an unfair advantage.”

“That's right, dear, and we need it in order to keep the boys from getting into too much trouble.” Lizenne went down on one knee and peeled up one of the prisoner's eyelids, checking for what in that yellow orb, Hunk didn't know. “I'm definitely going to have to get a sampling of the Human genome. It's been proven that aliens can't do this to us, and that was as fine a shaking-down that Pidge gave him as I've ever seen. There are recorded cases of parallel evolution, but this is ridiculous. Care to contribute, Hunk?”

“I'll think about it.”

“Good boy. Helenva, would you like to learn a useful trick?”

 

A few days later, the Ghamparva ship had been stripped of everything useful and the remains fed to a hatchling Weblum, and its previous owner had been delivered to a handy slum divested of both his trousers and certain of his memories. By general agreement, everyone had gone to the Black Lion's private bay to see if it was willing to choose one of them. Lizenne and Modhri had followed along to watch, knowing full well that they were in no way suitable for that duty. Keith tried first, laying a hand on the shield; it was his right, having been stuck with leading the team. To his private relief, the Lion ignored him completely. The other three Paladins got the same silent treatment. Coran marched forward and laid his hand on the shield as well. “Come on, old chap,” he coaxed the huge machine, “you are going to have to make a choice. Make it a good one, eh?”

The shield stayed up. Coran backed off with a disappointed sigh. “So much for my ambitions. Oh, well.”

One by one, the Blades tried and were rejected. Most of them took it with a shrug, but one or two were visibly disappointed. “Stubborn beast,” Coran commented to Allura. “No one's left but you, Modhri, the mice, and the dragons.”

Hunk snickered. “Hey, what if it does want Tilla, or that little blue mouse? And I thought that I had trouble getting into the armor!”

Tilla and Soluk had come along to watch the fun as well and were sitting off to one side with the mice perched on their broad heads. Soluk made a rude noise at Hunk, and the mice squeaked a firm negative.

“I can't.” Modhri said apologetically. “You know that. The black Lion requires a strong aetheric bond, and that's not possible for me anymore. Give it a try, Allura. You've got some experience at command, at least.”

“So do you,” she said, giving the Lion a dubious look.

“Yes, but I wasn't very good at it.” Modhri ran a thumb over one wide scar. “I'm a ship tech. You're a Princess. I was trained to keep starships running. You were trained in governance and leadership. I had guessed that aside from Keith or perhaps Bantax, you had the best chance of being accepted. Both of them were turned down.”

Allura turned back to the Lion and gave it a glare. “All right, then. If this doesn't work, then we're going to have to do a lot of searching. During that time, who knows what might happen? Choose, Lion.”

She laid a hand on the shield, which popped like a soap bubble. The Lion lowered its massive head, bowing to her.

“Well, now,” she said a little breathlessly, stroking the huge jaw.

Hunk grinned and patted her on the back. “Hey, great to have you on the team, Princess. It's fun, once you get used to it. Some of the time, anyway.”

“Yeah! Go get your bayard,” Lance said cheerfully, “let's see what kind of weapon you get. You'll need to learn how to use it, and I can give you some private lessons if you like... ow!”

Pidge had elbowed him in the ribs. “Cool it. Guys, there's a problem with this. If she's out fighting evil with us, who's piloting the Castle? She's the only one who's got a license to teludav.”

“That is a problem,” Keith mused. “I know that the Blue Lion opened a portal to get us here that first time, but that might have been an automatic system of the Castle's. Even if it wasn't, I'm not sure if the Lions can transport something that big. Maybe with the black Lion helping, she can sort of remote-operate the Castle's drive. Can you drive two craft at once, Allura?”

“I don't know,” Allura said, realizing that she hadn't considered the implications. “Coran?”

Coran tugged at his mustache. “Haven't the foggiest. Oh, there are a few emergency overrides that might let me take this thing on short jumps, but they're tricky and will do more harm than good. Simple fact is that you've got the talent, and I don't. Your mother was very proud when you tested positive, Allura. It's rare, and the Teludav Guild used to be a major power group, back in the day.”

“I can use it,” someone said quietly.

“Mom?” Keith asked, startled.

Zaianne nodded. “A few Galra have the talent as well. I'm one of them. The Blades of Marmora have some teludav-capable bases and ships, and I've been trained in their use. If you will introduce me to the Castle's AI and controls, I should be able to pilot this one, too.”

“Huh. Well, that would explain why we met that Galra scout in the Weblum's belly, then,” Hunk said, “if they're still using skaltrite crystals for making the lenses... hey, wait a minute, was that _you?”_

Zaianne smiled. “Yes, although I hadn't been aware that Kolivan had made contact with you. I was on detached duty at the time, and had been told to take what opportunities presented themselves. I was unlucky that time; my suit's communicator had shorted out when I wrecked my scout shuttle, and it smoked my visor. I could see well enough to fight, but that was all.”

“Wow,” Hunk said. “It's a good thing that nobody started shooting, wasn't it? Were you able to get out okay?”

“I managed.” Zaianne wrinked her nose. “Although I will not willingly go near one of those creatures again.”

“Me neither,” Keith agreed wholeheartedly. “Incidentally, can you tell us what you stole from Haggar?”

Zaianne glanced at Bantax, who nodded. “A key to one of her stockpiles of Quintessence. Even if we can't use it, if we can take it away from her, she won't be able to use it either.”

Soluk perked up at that and barked sharply, adding a long tangle of chirps, hisses, and whistles that echoed around the hangar.

“He says that he and Tilla can use it,” Lizenne translated. “Specifically, they can use it to revive the planets that were destroyed during the extraction process. It will be too late for some, of course, but salvaging any of them will be well worth the effort. It's certainly a project worth considering.”

Bantax frowned. “I will have to speak with Kolivan. It will be risky, very risky. Unless...” He cast his eyes up at the black Lion, and then at Allura.

Allura's expression grew determined. If there was a possibility of reviving some of her own lost kingdom, she would attempt it. “I will begin training immediately.”

 

A few hours later, Allura was trying not to regret her words. Alteans were surprisingly tough and she had undergone some warrior training before her father had pushed her into a cryopod—it was traditional—and she hadn't done too badly in fighting Haggar and her Druids, but this was something else again. In fact, she was starting to realize that Zarkon's witches had been nearly exhausted by the time that she and the Blades had confronted them. Despite her earlier efforts, Lizenne was a far more difficult foe. Zaianne and Helenva, while nowhere near as pyrotechnically-inclined, were also very dangerous people. The weight of her armor was unfamiliar and it pinched in odd spots, she was a bit out of practice, and while her bayard was also unfamiliar, at least it fit her hands.

At the moment, however, it was on the other side of the room, she was flat on the floor with her sparring partner on top of her, and the point of a knife was just touching the back of her neck. Oh, and Galra women were _heavy._ Alteans were all sinews and tendons; Galra were all dense bone and muscle.

“Yield, Princess?” Helenva asked with amusement in her voice.

_And_ they were smug. Lizenne wasn't the only one who qualified as arrogant and prideful. Helenva in particular had a mean streak that must have come in very handy in her line of work. Allura managed to get a hand planted and twisted like a snake, jerking hard to the left to avoid the knifepoint—she felt it glance off of the back of her helmet—and thrust her shoulders up and over as hard as she could. This unseated Helenva at least, and she was able to right herself and seize the Galra's wrist before she could take another stab at her. It was by main strength that Allura managed to force the pale-furred Simadhi over onto her back, although she didn't quite have the strength to make her drop the knife. Helenva grunted, heaved, and Allura went tumbling when Helenva's knee crashed into her backside.

Allura was very glad that her Paladins weren't here to see that.

“That's enough. Cool off, Helenva, you've gotten your point across.” Lizenne said, helping Allura up.

Helenva's pale eyes glinted, but she sheathed her knife anyway. “She's brave, I'll give her that. Needs some more muscle on that skinny frame, though.”

Allura glared at her, but Lizenne only smiled. “Now, now, dear, not everybody can be a musclebound powerhouse. There is much to be said for speed and agility. I wish that I could take you back to Zampedri for a few months, Allura, but we haven't the time.”

“What would we do on Zampedri?” Allura asked, wiping her moist face with one arm.

“Go feral.” Lizenne laughed at her shocked expression. “There is nothing that will tone you up and teach you survival skills like running wild on the prairies of Zampedri, and becoming part of a dragon-pack is a very great privilege. You have not truly lived until you have eaten something that you've hunted and killed yourself. Mind you, I say that as a person who evolved from a woodland predator. I don't know what's lurking up your evolutionary ancestry.”

Allura took a deep breath to calm herself. “Alteans,” she said haughtily, “evolved from a large omnivore that originally inhabited the equatorial wetlands of southern Aulacrath. They were sleek, rather beautiful creatures with a rich social life and great manual dexterity, and I am reasonably certain that they did not attempt to bully everyone around them into submission like some people I could mention.”

Zaianne let out a peal of laughter that echoed off of the walls. “Well, we've been told. My ancient ancestors were rough and ugly and enjoyed it. To tell you the truth, Lizenne, I wouldn't mind going back there. It's a good world. Not safe, not gentle, but good.”

“No world is safe or gentle to an ignorant outsider,” Lizenne said, “the trick is to learn to listen to it and to speak its language, and become a part of it. I was lucky, I'll admit that much—Zampedri's heavy on the predators, and I had just come out of a situation when I first arrived there that had put me in the mood for mayhem.”

“Oh?” Allura asked, hoping for another minute or two of rest.

Lizenne scowled at bad memories, tapping her nails on the shaft of her quarterstaff. “Family matters, alas. I'm not a princess, but I am a daughter of the Ghurap'Han Lineage. That will mean nothing to you, Allura, but I rank reasonably high in Galran society.”

Zaianne smirked. “Reasonably, she says. Hardly. Your grandmother is the power behind several provincial seats, and your family's got their claws set firmly into a number of big industries. Even the least and littlest daughter of that Line is worth her weight in diamonds.”

Lizenne made a rude noise. “Industrial diamonds, maybe. Certainly not gem-quality. I was always too wild for their tastes. Both my Mother and Grandmother had found out about my eight months of piracy, and my profitable but low-class studies on various barbarian outworlds. She'd also found out that I'd been showing preference for a male of no distinguished Line, a mere ship-tech, and one that she didn't approve of. I hadn't been using my household allowance either, so they couldn't control me by cutting off my funds.”

Helenva bared her teeth in a fearsome grimace. “What did they want of you?”

“To be compliant.” Lizenne hissed. “To acquiesce tamely to being shackled to a greedy, cruel, unprincipled, wasteful, inbred official on Golraz Beta, who had wealth, position, a very influential Lineage, and absolutely no character at all. I would not stand for having my claws clipped in that way, so I vanished. I hadn't expected Mother to send bounty hunters after me, however.”

“Bounty hunters?” Allura exclaimed in horror. “Your own mother!”

Lizenne sighed. “Allura, I wasn't a daughter to her. I was a possession and a tool. A valuable tool that the family had invested a great deal of time and expense in, and one that was refusing to cooperate. I am not at all sorry to have been disowned. Treasure your memories of your parents, girl, for they loved you for yourself and not for the wealth and power that you might have brought them. I dealt with those hunters, and rather permanently, but I was still seething with rage when I first arrived on Zampedri.”

“I can imagine,” Zaianne said dryly. “Being pursued is very annoying.”

Lizenne gave her a wry smile. “Oh, my, yes. Not half an hour after I'd set foot on those yellow grasses was I pursued again, this time by the local wildlife. An unittik, to be precise, which is a large solitary predator about half again as big as Soluk, with rather more teeth than sense and a scaly hide that is impervious to just about everything. I was less than pleased with it for disturbing my peace.”

“You tried magic on it, I expect,” Helenva said; she was grudgingly impressed by Lizenne's ability to fire lightning bolts across the room.

“Yes, and not very successfully.” Lizenne shrugged. “I'd never been very good with the formal training I'd received at home and hadn't started learning _Tahe Moq_ yet. Still, it confused the monster for long enough to attract the attention of Tilla and Soluk. I was the only creature other than their own kind to use aetheric techniques that they'd seen in their lives. They were curious, and so helped me drive the beast off.”

“The start of a beautiful friendship,” Zaianne observed.

“Yes, but a rocky one. It took some time for us to get used to each other.” Lizenne shook her head. “I hadn't been bossed around like that in years and resented it, and their inability to speak my language, even through a universal translator, did not help. They had never met with an eggling as willful as I was. I came around eventually, and we were able to get some real work done. Preparatory to a greater work, it seems, and so I do not regret those early setbacks.”

“Voltron.” Allura breathed. “It has something to do with Voltron, doesn't it? There have been all sorts of hints in that direction. Those dreams that we've all had.”

Lizenne nodded. _“Tahe Moq_ has been throwing its weight behind you and your Paladins, and I'm part of that. My declaration of _kheshveg_ is incidental. The Blades themselves are also a part, and the Balmerans, and everyone else that your proud company has touched. The Empire has been destroying worlds right and left, which is directly contrary to the purpose of life itself. That has to stop. Voltron is the tool that has been crafted for that purpose, and it _must_ have skilled operators. In the furtherance of that, young lady, would you like another bout with us, or would you prefer to go sit in the Lion's cockpit for a while? You'll need to get to know that big cat as well as you can, and soon.”

Allura considered that. “One more bout. I will rest in the Lion afterward.”

Lizenne smiled. “Very good.”

 

Later, Allura eased carefully back in the Lion's pilot seat with a care for her bruises. Tomorrow she would begin group training with the other Paladins; Coran would oversee that, and perhaps one or another of the dragons as well. Everybody else would be planning how best to go about stealing Quintessence back from the Empire, and for that, the Princess was grateful. Not just because it meant that she wouldn't have to deal with Helenva again for a while—she fought _dirty_ —but because it meant a real blow to the enemy if they were successful. Kolivan had been contacted and informed of the latest developments, or so Bantax had told her, and the old fellow had liked the idea of not having to face quite as many Robeasts in the future. A plan was a-building, and she would need to make sure that she and the others had a part in that process. Voltron might be a tool, but by the Ancients, the Paladins were not!

She shifted awkwardly in her seat and winced as her tailbone twinged. Despite the hot soak she'd had in her rooms, she was still quite sore. She felt a large warm presence rise around her, like a warm blanket on a cold day. There was a comforting murmur in the back of her mind, and her aches eased away. Allura smiled, feeling the Black Lion's consciousness rub up against her own like, yes, a large friendly animal. “It's all right, I know that you're doing your best,” she murmured to it. “I'll try hard to be worthy of you.”

There was a feeling of reassurance. She would do fine, she felt, although it would be hard for her at first. The great task for which Voltron had been made had been sadly delayed by circumstance, and as a result the job was going to be a great deal bigger and more difficult than it had been originally.

“I know,” Allura whispered wearily; the effort of her training session was starting to catch up with her, “Father admitted that he'd made a terrible mistake. Why didn't he trust that new cadet with you?”

There was an impression of dissent, of raw hero-worship, of angry, painful arguments within the pack. She felt anguish, that one who had been closer than a brother had betrayed them all so foully, and horror, and the desperate indecision that comes naturally when a fully-bonded team suffers a sudden breakup.

Tears started in Allura's eyes. “He idolized Zarkon, didn't he, and wouldn't act against him. The others... Father couldn't force them to fight him either. Not their leader.”

Leader, friend, brother, trusted, tried, and true... and cursed with the pride and predatory aggression that all Galra shared. They couldn't help it, it was a large part of their nature. That was why Voltron required five pilots, that the other four might balance the faults of any one individual. It just hadn't worked very well that last time. Even then, Zarkon had been too strong. No other Paladin had ever been so strong. Even now, over ten thousand years old and wounded nearly unto death, Zarkon still had that strength. He had built an Empire upon it.

“We're going to have a lot of trouble managing all of that,” Allura said, the sheer magnitude of that task making her cringe inside. “So very many people destroyed, so many planets. So many who will want revenge. We aren't going to be able to save them all.”

No, that would be impossible. Allura's heart mourned in tune with another great heart, who had once known the Galra as friends rather than enemies. There was still hope, however, that at least some of what was lost might be regained. The many peoples of the universe would see that, and perhaps be grateful enough to spare most of the innocent. That wouldn't be enough, though.

“We still need more allies,” Allura whispered, “all the allies that we lost when Father's kingdom was destroyed. And more.”

She had a vision then of Voltron with blade unsheathed, standing at the fore of a vast armada of ships. Many, many different fleets of ships. Before them hung the great angular hulk of Parzurak Spacehab and the swarms of heavy warships at its back, and the two sides were equal. No outcome could be certain at this point. Not yet.

“No one can truly predict the future.” Allura's head nodded, and darkness claimed her.

 

Modhri found her there much later. She hadn't come to dinner and everyone had sort of assumed that she'd eaten in her quarters, but he hadn't been so sure. He had some considerable experience in dealing with forceful, driven women after all, and his guesses were usually correct. His hearing was also exceptionally good, and he heard the faint but unmistakable sounds of occupancy when he entered the black Lion's hangar. Unafraid, he walked up to the huge machine and knocked gently on a paw. “Come on, old fellow, let's have her,” he chided gently, “she'll be in no shape to fly you about tomorrow if she's got a crick in her neck. I've fallen asleep in the cockpit often enough to know that for the truth.”

The Lion seemed to agree, for it lowered itself onto its belly, opening its vast jaws to reveal Allura in the throes of a dream, limbs twitching and a frown creasing her brow. She whimpered when he lifted her out of the pilot's seat and clutched at his shirt. “Father?” she whispered.

“Uncle,” he corrected her gently, “an honorary title, but welcome all the same.”

“I'm riding the Lion, Father” she told him, as though it were a great secret, “it has wings and breathes fire.”

Modhri glanced up at the great felinoid robot with a disapproving eye and began carrying her toward the lift. “Some do.”

“The yellow one is very strong and the green one is very smart,” Allura murmured blurrily, nuzzling at his collarbone. “The red one is very fierce and the blue one is very brave. My Lion leads them.”

“All groups must have a leader,” he agreed gravely, “or they're no better than a mob. It is a terrible responsibility.”

“I'm scared,” she said in a tiny voice. “Father, I'm scared that I'll do it wrong.”

Modhri sighed. Under that regal mask was a teenaged girl, far too young for the responsibilities that had been dropped on her. “The best ones always are,” he said quietly, easing into the lift and keying it for the proper level. “But they overcome that fear and do their duty all the same. Those who have no fear make rash mistakes. Those who let their fears think for them make cowardly ones. Those who think through their fear, who learn to turn it around and give it back to those who made them afraid, those are the great ones. Shiro did that. If he can do it, so can you. You've been doing it all along, so it won't be anything new for you.”

“I have?” Allura asked plaintively.

The lift doors opened, and he eased her out and set off down the hall. “Yes, child. From the moment you woke into this troubled new era, you have been doing exactly that. Remember always that you do not face the future alone. Your friends are with you. See them, riding their own Lions. They will never leave you. They offer you their courage. Take this offering and make it a part of yourself, but remember—this faith cannot be one-sided. They need your courage as well.”

“There they are,” she said, sounding happy. “I see them, Father. We're all together. We're all so strong...”

“Yes, child, you are.” Modhri nudged the doorpad with an elbow and carried her inside when the hatch hissed open.

Her room was neat and well-appointed, and quite luxurious as befit a royal princess. He laid her gently on her bed, pulled the blankets around her, and keyed a nearby snacks dispenser for a pile of nutrition bars. These he laid on the table beside her bed along with a glass of vitamin-fortified beverage; after the afternoon she'd had, she would need it. He turned to leave and noticed the mice staring at him from her vanity. “Watch over her,” he told them gravely, “she will probably need comforting when she wakes, and I'm not the person that she'll want to see.”

The mice squeaked reassuringly, and he nodded and left.

On the bed, curled up warm, Allura dreamed of flying.

 

Allura came down for breakfast that morning looking reenergized, but something around her eyes suggested that she'd been crying. Nobody made an issue of it. She went out on the scheduled training run in the Lions with Keith and the others, and on the whole they didn't do too badly. They weren't quite able to form Voltron on the first try, of course, but none of them had really been expecting to be able to. Allura was well-aware that they were giving her room and time to adjust, and was very grateful for that. Coran, at least, was his usual ridiculously cheerful self and welcomed them all warmly when they came back, bubbling over with praise for Allura's progress. Allura was polite and took both praise and criticism with equal attention, but something was nagging at her mind.

“It's okay, Princess,” Pidge told her understandingly. “You've got a lot to work out right now. I've got a project running in the lab anyway, so how about you take an hour or two to deal with some of it? We can put off the team training session for that long.”

In truth, she had not been looking forward to that, so she nodded gratefully and headed off toward the engeneering deck. On her way, she passed one of the conference rooms and heard the low murmur of serious discussion. A glance inside revealed the Blades going over a pile of data, with a starmap in the center of it all and smaller screens clustered thickly around it. As she watched, a couple of them got into a low-voiced argument over some portion of the map, topaz eyes glinting and fangs bared until Zaianne reached out and caught them both by one ear. Not as a friendly gesture, either; both of them yelped in surprise and looked rather ashamed of themselves when she spoke a few sharp words and indicated one of the lesser screens. None of the other Blades laughed at this, but merely took it as normal procedure and continued with the discussion. Galra women had to be bullies, it seemed, to keep the men in line. Allura continued on her own errand, eventually finding Modhri in one of the maintenance stations, paging through a manual for the ventilation system.

He looked up at her entry and smiled. “Ah, just the person I wanted to see. What does this string of ideographs mean?”

She peered at the indicated line of text. “'Tertiary airflow filtration inductor',” she translated.

“I thought it was something like that,” he said, writing something on a sheet of scratch paper in the angular glyphs his own people used. “Pidge showed me how to use the Castle's linguistics program—safety on, of course. Altean's not an easy language. I bit my tongue three times in the first half-hour.”

She gave him an arch look. “I expect that Galran is no easier.”

“Possibly. It's mostly growling. Aside from the Gantars, we have the fiercest-sounding love poetry in the known universe.” He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Did you need something?”

Allura hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to start. “Were the Blades able to tell you anything about your great-uncle?”

Modhri sighed and leaned an elbow on the desk. “Yes, alas. Zandrus was indeed one of them, and he died almost twenty years ago. He'd been training new members when his base was discovered, and he sacrificed his own life so that everyone else could escape. I am saddened by his loss; I was very fond of him, but I am also proud that he died well. Very proud—Zaianne was one of the escapees. If he had not bought her time enough to get to the shuttle bays, Keith would never have been born.”

Allura drew in a sharp breath for that narrow escape. “Have you any other family?”

Modhri shook his head. “Not anymore. I'm dead, remember? Any Galra so foolish as to wind up as one of Haggar's lab animals is immediately declared dead by their families, if only to save the Lineage a little honor and to avoid further penalties from the Throne. I had seventeen brothers and a sister, two aunts and a whole crowd of uncles and cousins, a clutch or two of nephews, and even a neice. None of them will claim me now. Lizenne is in the same situation, of course, as are all of the Blades, although she and no few of the others are in no way saddened by this. Why?”

“I fell asleep in the black Lion's cockpit last night, and had a dream where I was speaking with my Father,” Allura said, “and I woke up in my bed with purple fur on my nose. Father didn't have purple hair, except for that one time when he was reaching for a piece of tilsaberry pie and the server's hand slipped.”

“Ah. I'm sorry.” Modhri gave her an apologetic glance. “I hadn't the heart to wake you, so I carried you to your room. Was that wrong of me?”

“Some might think so,” Allura replied, considering what her own aunts would have said about having an unrelated man in one's private chambers. “I don't. Did... did I talk in my sleep?”

“A little. I tried to be comforting.” Modhri sighed sadly. “I miss my nephews very much, Princess. You have no idea how happy it made me to hear Pidge call me her uncle. Galra take family matters very seriously, especially the men. We aren't cut out to be loners. If we have no family, we'll adopt where we can. I am very glad that the Paladins adopted me and Lizenne. We were lonely, even with the dragons.”

Allura's heart clenched in sympathy. “Will you accept another neice?” she asked in a small voice.

“In a flash,” he said with a broad smile, “but that means that you'll have to accept Lizenne as your aunt. She'll drive you to succeed, I warn you—she's merciless that way.”

Allura made a hiccuping noise somewhere between laughter and tears. “She'll do that anyway, Uncle Modhri.”

“So she will.” Modhri stood up and spread his arms welcomingly. “Now give your uncle a hug.”

She wrapped her arms around him without hesitation and felt his own arms close gently around her shoulders, reveling in the comfort it brought. “I will never be able to replace your father, child,” he said quietly in her ear, “but I will at least be able to offer this much: advice when asked for it, comfort where needed, and what strength I can muster in the coming days. All given freely, for one does not put a price upon familial duty.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Think nothing of it,” he replied, rubbing her back. “Now go and play with your siblings. They'll have all sorts of games to teach you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Black Paladin Allura is one I'd really hoped to see happen in Canon, just because I think she would have made an excellent leader and taken a big step away from the stereotype fluffy pink princess that was the original Allura. Season 3 dashed those hopes, of course, but we decided to explore it in this story anyway.  
> And now we all know that the stranger from the Weblum was actually Acxa (try saying that ten times fast), but we didn't know that when we wrote the story, so Zaianne gets to be there instead. ^_^  
> And lastly, remember that fic writers are like puppies, and comments are our favorite kibble! Feed the puppies!!!


	4. Advancements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Adversary Alert From The Blue Spanch:
> 
> Okay, folks, in this chapter we will see the arrival of none other than Prince Lotor. Kindly recall that the bulk of this story was written before Season 3 came out, so all I had to go with was the original character from the early '80's. Ah, yes, the early '80's, when villains were as cardboard-like as the heroes, when morality was strictly black-and-white, and when Zarkon looked to have been bred from fish. Original Lotor wore a skull-shaped belt buckle, a wonderfully stupid-looking hat, a distinctly bluish complexion, and had a distinct resemblance to the Original Red Paladin (although that was probably more due to art style than anything else), with whom he spent most of his time contending with for the dubious honor of lusting after Original Allura. Frankly, those two should have been lusting after each other. Original Allura was a caucasoid blonde with the brains of pocket lint, who practically wet herself when menaced by Original Haggar's Evilcat. I'm sorry, people, I but would not have bred from that lady. Modern Allura would have chased that cat up a tree and then cut down the tree. Her mice would have chased Evilcat up the tree and then cut down the tree.
> 
> Original Lotor did not have henchwomen. Original Lotor had a harem of three or four servant girls who were even more cookie-cutter than he was, and whose one contribution to the series was to allow the audience to see him mostly naked once.
> 
> Modern Lotor is enormously intelligent, sneaky, ambitious, intensely political, he doesn't like his dad much, and he gives Haggar hives, which is just fine because he's allergic to her, too. Modern Lotor might be a lab-grown mix of her genes and Zarkon's, and may well resent that. Modern Lotor is well beyond my capabilities to write for convincingly, so I didn't bother to try to go back and correct his character. I've gotten rid of the bad fashion sense of the original, added a decent helping of IQ points, given the man his own private battlefleet, and did my best to bring him up to speed. He's still a bit impulsive, still arrogant, still has a weakness for pretty girls, still looks a bit like Keith, is about as trustworthy as a moray eel, and he still makes mistakes. I've done my best and will continue to do so, and I hope that you will enjoy his antics regardless.

Chapter 4: Advancements

 

The “games” were nothing more than the same basic training that the Paladins had received when they'd first begun, and they were as surprised as she was at how easy for them it was now. It was easier if she did think of those exercises as games, although she knew very well that they weren't. She was able to hold her own quite satisfactorily until Soluk poked his head in through the door.

“Hey, big guy, want to play?” Hunk asked. “He's great practice, Princess, especially for fighting Robeasts. He can act just like them.”

Soluk adopted a clumsy posture, his eyes looking off in all different directions, lolled his big blue tongue out and made a series of ridiculous _gurk_ ing noises that were probably the dragonish equivalent of “duh”. The Paladins laughed.

“Yup, looks just like them,” Lance said. “Nah, who am I kidding? They've all been really nasty so far. Drop the funny-face if you're going to join in, Soluk.”

The dragon shook his head and bounced forward with teeth bared, uttering a shattering bellow.

“ _That's_ more like it,” Keith remarked, raising his sword.

Soluk was a worthy adversary. Despite his size, he was astonishingly fast and agile on his feet, his enormously tough, spiky hide was just about impervious to their weapons, his six eyes gave him an enormous range of vision, and he was very, very good at spotting weaknesses. That meant that Allura found herself being the focus of his attention most of the time, and her teammates had to take it in turns to distract him long enough for her to get a few strikes in. She caught on soon enough, and was even starting to enjoy herself before Soluk managed to knock her down and pin her to the floor. It took all four of the others several minutes to drive him off of her, which was as well; the impact had been bruising and had quite knocked the breath out of her. They were all wheezing and trembling with their efforts by the time that he condescended to yield.

“Is fighting Robeasts always like that?” Allura asked, sinking down onto the floor.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Lance said, thumping down beside her, “except that they really are trying to kill you and are usually a lot uglier.”

Keith, Hunk, and Pidge sat down as well, Pidge stretching out her legs with a grunt as if trying to make them grow longer. “Voltron's the one who's taking all the big hits, but you'll still feel them.”

“And when you're in the middle of a fight with him, you may as well _be_ your Lion.” Hunk sighed and scratched at his stomach. “After a while, anyway. The first few times it was definitely a separate experience.”

Keith hummed under his breath. “You'll grow into it. We sure did. It'll feel really weird at first, or at least it did for us. You're probably already sensitized to that sort of thing, being hooked into the Castle and all.”

“I don't even notice that connection anymore,” Allura admitted, “not unless I'm actually on the navigation dais or during battle. I was added to the ship's core systems on my twelfth birthday. It did indeed feel rather odd, but being able to access every single system whenever I liked more than made up for it. Oh, thank you, Soluk.”

The dragon had wandered off and had come back with a net-bag full of beverage packets, the fizzy ones that the Paladins liked best. He grunted in a sort of “you're welcome” way and ambled off again, returning with a different bag a few minutes later.

Lance groaned. “Aw, Soluk, seriously? We gave you and Tilla a really good polish just yesterday!”

Soluk rumbled sternly, dropped the bag of brushes into his lap, and flopped down beside them with a significant clatter of spines.

Hunk chuckled and retrieved a brush. “That's the deal, Lance. He helps us fight monsters, and we keep him nice and shiny. Keeps us from stiffening up after a fight, too. Grab a brush, Allura. It won't take long with all of us helping.”

They fell to with a will, Soluk grunting happily as they worked their way from nose to tail-tip. Allura got a very good look at just about every inch of him during that time, including the huge curved claws. Particularly when he rolled over onto his back so that they could get at his belly scales. The claws were massive things, longer than her own fingers, with needle tips and fine serrations down the inner edge. They were fearsome weapons, and very necessary on a world where even a prairie dragon was not the top predator. Allura could not help but to feel a certain admiration for Lizenne, who actually enjoyed running wild in that environment. Oh, she had answered the call of her evolutionary beginnings by playing in the mud often enough when she was very little, but this was something else again. Hunk distracted her from those thoughts by tickling Soluk in the armpits, cooing at the great reptiloid and laughing when Soluk wrapped him in a huge bear hug, pulled off his helmet, and began licking his hair. Then they had to spend a moment getting Hunk's headband untangled from Soluk's fangs.

“You're going to have to wash that,” Pidge observed, holding up the dripping length of fabric between one thumb and forefinger.

“I wash it every night.” Hunk said, taking it from her. “If I don't, it gets all greasy and starts to stink. I don't mind if Soluk helps. Something about dragon spit gets the stains out really well.”

“Makes your hair all glossy, too,” Lance said thoughtfully. “It's almost a shame that my sister Marcia's not here. She's taking cosmetology courses in college and intends to make it big in hair-care products. She'd get a kick out of this big guy. Or he'd bite her. Whichever.”

There was a wistful chuckle from the group; they were always a little sad when reminded of home. “Yeah, Mom wouldn't handle seeing Soluk real well, either,” Pidge said, “she gets nervous around anything bigger than a bull terrier. That's a medium-sized dog, Allura, about yea big.”

Allura gauged the size from Pidge's gesturing hands and nodded. “About the same size as a nomotwill. I had a cousin who was terrified of any creature that size or smaller, and my mice used to frighten him right up trees! If he couldn't see over the roof of the stables while sitting on its back, he didn't want anything to do with it.”

“I have a cousin like that, too,” Hunk said, stripping the excess moisture out of his headband and winding it around one hand. “He's just fine around the really big animals, elephants and oxen and things, but show him a gerbil—those are about the same size as the mice—and he's out of there. He's got this horrible fear of them shinnying up his pant legs and biting him on the--”

“ _Don't_ say it,” Keith sighed. “That actually happened to me once. Dad had to take me in to the clinic and they gave me a bunch of shots. That was not a good day.”

“Shots?” Allura asked.

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “A way of getting medicine directly into the bloodstream by injection through a hollow needle. If you hold still and they do it right, you just feel a little sting. Try telling that to a little kid, though.”

“It sounds ghastly.” Allura said.

“It is,” Keith replied. “Most clinics have better ways of doing that now, but Dad couldn't afford anything fancy, and rabies vaccines don't really work very well with any of the fancy methods, anyway. On the other hand, if I bite someone, they probably won't get sick.”

Pidge giggled. “Still recovering from that trance-trip?”

“You're one to talk,” Keith retorted. “You bit Chesk on the ankle.”

Pidge sniffed primly. “He got between me and the plate, and I said I was sorry.”

There was some snickering about that. “Cripes, what a trip that was,” Hunk muttered, “I'd never been that hungry in my life. I just wish that we could've brought Shiro back. I wonder what he's doing?”

“No idea,” Keith said glumly. “I miss him. Sorry, Allura, I know that you're doing your best, but...”

Allura waved a reassuring hand. “I know. It's not the same.”

“Yeah. You looked kind of down this morning.” Pidge cast her a sympathetic glance over Soluk's belly. “Had a bad night?”

Allura hesitated, but a true team held back no secrets. She told them of her dream, and of the discussion that she'd had with Modhri afterward.

Pidge smiled. “Aww. Awesome Space Uncle is so sweet. Welcome to the family, Allura. Hey, you can be Mean Space Big Sister!”

Allura couldn't help but laugh at that. “Sure, why not? Does that mean that I can bully the rest of you?”

“That's what you've been doing all along,” Lance smirked at her. “Why stop when you're on a roll? You'll have to take turns with Scary Space Aunt, though.”

“Or team up,” Hunk said, and then shuddered. “Crud. I don't know if all of us can hide behind Modhri at once, and we may need to!”

“At least Keith's got Super Magic Ninja Space Mom,” Lance said, giving Soluk's tail a scrub. “It's weird, though. How come Modhri's so nice, while every other Galra guy we've met has been either ferocious or evil? Did Haggar cut out his mean spleen or something, along with everything else?”

“He's married,” Keith said. “I asked Mom about it. She says that unattached Galra men are always in competition with each other. The women will only choose the best, so all the guys have to work hard to be the best. It's not too different from the way we do it, really, although those instincts are way stronger in them than in Humans. Once a woman does that thing with his ears—hands off, Pidge—he doesn't have to worry about that any more. He calms right down and only gets mean if someone tries to get between him and his Lady. Or threatens her or their children, in which case they'll both turn the bad guy into a small pile of hash. The rest of the time he's being the best dad or uncle that he can be.”

“And Galra women are all mother bears.” Hunk added. “Remember how Lizenne acted when she and Modhri first got here? Modhri was all worn out from doing daring rescues all day, and stuck really close to her, and she would have shredded the first person to look cross-eyed at him if I hadn't made it to the kitchen in time. Reminded me a little of one of my classmates back in middle school, Melissa Harmon. She was the prettiest little girl in the neighborhood, and her mom knew it. Whenever Lissa went out to the park or to any other public place, there was her mom, glaring daggers at anyone who got too close. She was a third _dan_ black belt in karate and had already smashed up two home invaders, the creepy guy that hung around the beach, and an ex-boyfriend by the time Lissa moved up to high school.”

“It has to be that way,” Keith said. “There really aren't all that many Galra women.”

Allura smiled. “Perhaps if we manage things right, at least some of the men might find a new option among Humanity in the future. We've already proven that Pidge's woman's touch is effective, after all. It might be that we've found a way to tame that race.”

They stared at her in startled silence for a moment, and then Lance collapsed laughing against Soluk's leg. “Mars Needs Women!” he choked out. “Oh, _quiznek._ Hey, Keith, how would you like a lot of furry purple cousins?”

“Already got some.” Keith said with a silly grin. “Allura, you are a bad person, and everybody out there who thinks that mixed-race marriages are degenerate would probably explode if they'd heard what you've just said.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Allura asked archly.

Pidge grinned. “Not really.”

 

Someone else was considering the relative scarcity of Galra women, and was worried about it. Specifically, the lack of strong witches among them. Oh, there were still enough in reserve to serve their purpose, but the next few generations were going to be more than a little sparse. It took a strong witch to survive the process of becoming a Druid, and the supply was getting low. Her own fault, Haggar knew. She had used them too freely, and too hard, and now they were gone. She should have let the last batch breed a few more daughters before she called them up, but there had been no time. Now, there was even less. Haggar had spent what little strength that she'd had left after the battle to stabilize her Emperor's damaged body and preserve his life, then left the three Druids that were still conscious on watch while she slept. Zarkon still lived and was even, slowly, starting to mend, but her three Druids were dead and there were definite signs that something very unusual had happened in the healing chamber. The air still trembled with the residue of warring powers, and _something_ had left a pattern of grooves in the floor, sliced right into the deckplate as though it had been no harder than dirt. Something very powerful had come an enormous distance to slay her most powerful servants and then have an argument right in front of her, and she'd missed the whole thing. What was worse was that she hadn't any idea of what it had been. The signature... the _scent_ of the thing was curiously mixed.

There was the scent of the Lion; that had hung vaguely around Zarkon for as long as she had known him, but unusually strong. There was a distinct whiff of Paladin—all five of them, which was impossible. She smelled Galra as well, _male_ Galra, which was even more impossible, and female, which wasn't, and a bizarre blend of the two, which was slightly less so. There was an undertone of something that made her think of the Bandinkan tree-lizard that had become the Robeast that she'd sent to the Balmera, and more than a little of something... something else. Something that shone. Something that gleamed a fluid gold, like raw Quintessence. _Gold._

Haggar looked down at the patch of scarred floorplate upon which she stood. It was at the end of a long winding streak of four sets of scratches, thin streamers of peeled-up metal like clusters of springs still attached to the stricken plating. Almost as if a very large animal had been skidded across the floor. Just visible on either side of it were the faint marks of four more, and more still were scattered well back from the arch. _Very_ strong. So strong that some actions on the Mindscape had effects here in reality. Haggar spoke a few soft words that hadn't been spoken in eons and was rewarded with a vague shimmer of yellow light in the air. Almost faded off, but still present enough to be familiar. She _knew_ that signature, had met with its owner not so long ago, and had dismissed her as nothing more than a troublesome child. Haggar bared her teeth in fury, both at herself and at the instigator of this mess. Of course that little termagant would have acted! Had she not declared _kheshveg?_ Haggar berated herself for not pursuing the matter when she'd had the chance. _Foolish old woman,_ her inner mind scolded, _the girl studies Tahe Moq, and has powers that are unknown to modern Aetherics. She is the very vector of the unexpected!_ Although just why she had not followed through by killing Zarkon or herself was a mystery, it was one that had revealed as much as it had hidden. Haggar felt the old, familiar emotion of grim determination enfold her like a favorite cloak. In Galran society, what a woman wanted, a woman got. Haggar wanted that witch.

“Lady Haggar?” a nervous voice interrupted her thoughts.

Haggar looked up to see a soldier standing warily, well out of arm's reach; her temper had been very short lately, and the guards had suffered for it. “What?”

The soldier flinched at her sharp tone. “Prince Lotor has arrived, Lady Haggar, and wishes to see his father.”

Haggar growled low under her breath, but she didn't have much choice. “Let him in.”

Lotor. She didn't much like the boy, but he was the only one of Zarkon's offspring that had the potential to live up to his sire's legacy. Zarkon hadn't been much interested in starting a dynasty, not with his indefinitely-extended lifespan, and had been too far gone in his obsessions to bother much with the various heiresses that the noble families offered up for his pleasure. The clutches he'd sired were largely ignored by their father, and of the three daughters he'd managed to spawn, two had had negligible talent and the third had been among the Druids that had died. Short of cloning the Emperor, Lotor would have to do.

The soldier scurried away and returned a minute later, escorting the Prince and one other; it was to be a day of less-than-welcome reunions, it seemed, for Sendak marched in grim silence behind his young lord. Sendak was looking drawn and worn, as though he had been under a great stress for some time, and he refused to meet Haggar's eyes when she leveled a glare at him. Lotor looked far fresher than his henchman did, tall and strong and handsome in his way, and as arrogant and brash as any young noble looking for some trouble to get into. He was ambitious, however. To all kings, a strong prince was both an asset and a risk; it was good to have a fallback if something happened to the sovereign, but princes expected to become kings in time. Sometimes they became impatient and tried to hurry things along a little. She'd have to keep an eye on the boy, and considered which hex would be the most appropriate for the job.

“Lady Haggar,” Lotor said with only the shadow of a bow, drat him. “How is my Father?”

She waved a hand at the recumbent figure in the healing chamber and led him over to observe. “He begins to mend, my Lord. He was gravely wounded. A lesser man would have died instantly.”

Lotor approached the aetheric healing platform with care, his yellow eyes taking in the pulses of energy flowing into it, and the still face of his sire. “Has he woken at any time since the battle?”

“No,” Haggar said grimly. “He is in a coma for the time being. All of his strength must be directed into healing himself. He cannot waste energy on consciousness at this point. Even if he had won that fight, he would have been exhausted at the finish.”

Lotor humphed. “He used that experimental battlesuit of his, the one that kept killing the test pilots?”

“Of course. He would not be dissuaded.” Haggar glowered suspiciously at the back of the boy's head; Lotor's face was all filial concern, but his eyes told her a different story. “He was determined to take back his Lion, and nearly did so.”

“You should have helped him,” Lotor accused, fixing her with a censorious glare of his own.

“I did,” she said sharply. “He had taken in more Quintessence than he had ever before and was brimming with power. My Druids and I struck at Voltron as well with the Kolmar Extractor, shutting it down for a brief time. We would have done it again, but traitors led by that Altean girl attacked us, and kept us from aiding him further.”

“An Altean? I had thought that the last of those were being kept encapsulated.” Lotor eyed her with interest. “Father had kept them around for old time's sake, I believe.”

“They have their uses,” Haggar growled, “the girl is Alfor's daughter, Princess Allura. Whatever else you might do to combat Voltron, my Lord, take care to capture that girl alive. I want her.”

Lotor's eyebrows lifted. “And what use do you have for her?”

“She has power.” It was safe enough to admit that, Alteans had been great scholars of the aetheric sciences once. Haggar knew that better than anyone. “Quite considerable power. She was able to absorb a killing strike and redirect the energy without harm to herself. I will extract that power from her and use it for better purposes than she has done, be sure of that. Bring her to me alive. Not necessarily whole, but alive. It might be better if you softened her up a little first, anyway. The Paladins value her highly, and her loss would disrupt them.”

Lotor smiled unpleasantly. He was reputed to have a taste for pretty alien females. “It shall be done, Lady Haggar. I shall avenge my Father's wounding forthwith. Voltron will once again be the Empire's tool, and I shall display the skulls of the Paladins above the Throne.”

“Very good, my Lord,” Haggar said, gesturing a polite dismissal, “and I will see to it that your Father recovers soon enough to welcome those gifts. Ah. May I borrow Sendak for a moment? It has been some time since we last spoke.”

Lotor's smile grew cruel. “Of course. Send him back to me when you're done with him, if you would, and do try not to remove any more of his parts.”

It took considerable effort not to slap the boy, but she managed it. “As you wish, my Lord,” she said in a chilly tone.

Lotor gave her another of those mocking little bows and strode out of the room, leaving Sendak standing in sullen silence behind him. Haggar regarded the still figure for a moment before speaking. Sendak looked even less well up close than he had at first. He had lost weight and his fur was noticeably paler than it had been, and his mechanical arm and eye looked as though they hadn't had proper maintenance in a month. “You seem to have fallen on your feet,” she said.

“More or less, Lady Haggar,” Sendak said in a low voice. “The Prince attached me to his retinue nine weeks ago, after I had quelled an uprising out by Adrimark. He is not the commander that his father is.”

“ _No one_ is the commander that his father is, save the Emperor himself,” Haggar said. “That isn't important. You have not had much luck in carrying out your own orders.”

Sendak sighed. “No. The Paladins move about in great random leaps and bounds, and they never stay visible for long when they do surface. I was having better luck with tracing the movements of their witch, who has been fomenting unrest wherever she goes. Unfortunately, the Governors have enough rank to command me to clean up their messes for them; rounding up and executing rebels is cathartic, but it costs me time, and during that time she vanishes like mist. And now this.”

Haggar humphed. Sendak was loyal to the Emperor, but he did not like the Prince. She could make use of that. “That arrogant cub will need watching. I do not entirely trust him to follow orders, and his reputation of how he treats his prisoners is not good. I do not entirely trust him around his sire either, not when Zarkon is so weakened by his injuries. I have lost many Druids during the recent events; sooner or later, that witch will strike at you. I will give you something that will neutralize her, and you will bring her to me alive.”

“But not necessarily whole?” Sendak asked with a faint, anticipatory smile.

“Rough her up a little if you must, but don't break anything. Keep her drugged, if you can.” Haggar cast him a sly smile of her own. “Lizenne has demonstrated to us that she has great power, has she not? Then let her learn to use it for the greater glory of the Empire, as is her duty.”

“And if the greater glory should require the reining-in of the Prince, I will do this thing twice as gladly. Will you make a Druid of that Altean girl as well?”

Haggar snorted. “I might. It would be amusing to see whether or not her Paladins would have the courage to fight her. Or, perhaps, she would make a better Robeast. Go get some proper maintenance for your implants, Sendak, then go dance attendance on the Prince. We have work to do.”

He bowed to her, properly low to honor her rank. “We do. May fortune favor the both of us.”

“Indeed.”

 

It was a weird fact, but technology the universe over, no matter its origin, sounded pretty much the same. Things whirred or hummed softly, emitted the occasional click, buzz, hiss, weird gurgling noise, or beep. Metals and ceramics still went “clonk”, whether they were aluminum or hantalurium, terra-cotta or neoglaze. Pidge was currently leaning back in the chair she kept by her lab bench with her feet propped up on a nearby table, eyes closed as she listened to her collection of offworld widgets muttering to themselves. It was a soothing sound, almost a song to her ears, and each machine had a different voice, a different tempo, and a different accent.

She opened her eyes and gazed at the clutter on the bench next to her, and at two specimens in particular. One was Rover, her poor dead security drone. The other was what was left of one of the Sentries that had invaded the Castle with Sendak months ago. The first had sacrificed itself to save her. She'd forcibly deactivated the other one. Neither of them were anything other than bits of machinery, no more alive than her mother's toaster had been, and yet... and yet they had been, in their way. The Olkaris had taught her that when you got down to the atomic level, there wasn't much difference between machine and living creature. Everything was made from the same set of elements, all mixed up in different ways, and that small changes on that basic level had very large effects all the way down the line. That made sense; one tiny speck of dust in the wrong spot could seriously foul up a supercomputer, and one tiny drop of chemicals out of place in the human body could cause huge medical problems. What was circuitry, other than a mechanical nervous system? Oh, some biologists back home had tried cloning up a bunch of raw brain matter and had experimented with using it as a sort of organic computer once, and she'd read the reports in her dad's scientific journals with great interest. It had actually been surprisingly successful—not as fast as conventional computer systems, but a whole lot more flexible. That was where circuitry failed, actually; it just could not handle events outside of the preprogrammed parameters, and it was nearly impossible to make ones that could learn from experience. For that, you needed a living mind.

She'd connected with living machines on Olkaria as naturally as breathing, and she'd used what she'd learned to destroy an unbeatable foe. She could feel every inch of the Castle as though it were a second skin, and even speak to the Lions, although only the green one would talk back. It was watching her with great interest right now, through the bond she'd formed with it. She could form bonds with far simpler devices, Rover had proven that, and she hadn't even been trying. It had been more emotional than anything else—she really missed Gunther, her brother's beloved mutt—but it had been real.

Pidge sighed. She'd never been good at making friends, preferring machines instead. Machines didn't make unnecessary demands, steal the last slice of pie, throw rolled-up socks at her head, poop behind the rosebushes, or get into stupid situations at parties. Machines had a purpose, and performed that purpose without complaint. She had always dreamed of having a gang of robots of her very own, and Rover had given her a taste of that. She turned her attention to the Sentry. It was a mess; most of the lower body was gone along with the right arm, the torso was severely dented and the optic visor was cracked. Its cortex had been more or less toasted off as well, and the only really intact part left was the left arm from the elbow down. She'd taken that apart and put it back together three times, trying to get an idea of how Shiro's battle-arm worked. It was amazing just how similar the inner components were to the muscles, bones, and tendons in her own arm.

She considered that, nibbling thoughtfully on one thumbnail. Those big parts weren't what was important. What was important was the wiring. Wires were machine nerves, delivering the impulses from the cortex to the parts that did the work. No, no, she was wrong. It was the impulses themselves that were the key. It was the signals that her brain sent that moved her body, and that had a direct effect on how Voltron functioned during battle; the control beams and bayard sockets were incidental. What was important was the pilot's _contact—_ the hands on the controls and the strength of the bond—that got the work done. She channeled her impulses into the machines she played with through her home-built laptop, but did she really need it? She hadn't used it to subvert the little drone, but that shouldn't have been possible. The Galran computer languages were _nothing_ like Earthly ones. And she'd gotten a Sentry to offer up information when no other unauthorized hacker had ever succeeded in doing so. Her system was good, but it wasn't that good. Therefore, the key had to be something lurking in her own mind.

_Well?_ She thought silently at the green Lion.

The Lion continued to watch her with guarded interest.

Someone had done the same thing that she'd done with Rover, only more so, long and long ago to bring the Lions to life. It had been done, therefore it could be done again.  _Had_ been done again. By her. But how?

“Come on,” Pidge said to herself, “think! I did it once, I can do it again. This is going to be important if we're going to be dealing with a lot of robot armies, and the Galra really like robot armies. How did I do it?”

Surprisingly, the green Lion answered. Not in words, but with a memory. It was a memory of a timeless, dim moment, like those rare times at the end of a really good nap where you're just under the surface and fully aware of it, and yet still fully asleep. Pidge treasured those times because the most wonderful inspirations could form freely there, and she could usually remember enough of them to write some amazing code. She drifted in that special state until a voice echoed in from far away, calling out what sounded like a name. Not her name, but the Lion's name, repeating, becoming more insistent with every repetition until everything snapped into sharp focus. She was awake, aware, and alive.

Pidge was so surprised by this sudden burst of awareness that she overbalanced and tipped over backward, landing on the floor with a painful thud. She lay there gasping for a moment, then picked herself and the chair up. “I gave it a name,” she muttered bemusedly, then shook her head. “No, that can't be it. It can't be that simple. If it was that simple, every toy I've ever owned would be walking around on its own. It's something else...”

The green Lion was listening. She could feel it doing so, listening so hard that it could have heard her heart beat halfway across known space.

“I have to listen,” Pidge said as the realization hit. “That's it! This is aetheric science, which is a fancy way of saying 'magic'. This counts as magic, and the heart and soul of magic is learning to listen!”

Never willing to let a hypothesis go untested, she propped her hands on the desk, staring hard at the ruined Sentry. She took a deep breath to calm herself, closed her eyes, and opened the same perceptions she used when feeling the Castle. It was a little like the “you are of the pack” exercises she'd done with the others in that she could perceive everything around her. The Castle had always shone a pale blue in her mind, except the entertainment deck in the north wing where Lizenne had left her own golden signature. Oops, and the training deck where they'd taken the mind trip as dragons. That room burned in her mental map like a bonfire now. Her own handmade devices shone a clear, glinting green, but the Sentry was very different. The Sentry was a dim, sullen purple, and it smelled bad. She'd smelled it before, she realized, or sort of. As a dragon, she'd smelled that stink coming off of the Druids, and, she realized with a start, she'd caught vague whiffs of it from not only the Robeasts that she'd fought, but the Olkarian cube monster. Far away, she heard the green Lion growl; she smelled the scent of evil, it told her, and hated it. Fascinated, she studied the Sentry more closely. Machines couldn't be evil all by themselves, she knew. They could only be put to that purpose by evil people, and sure enough, the vile purple stink didn't come from the Sentry itself, but from a mass of stringy-looking purple crud knotted up in its cortex. She peered closer at it and realized that it wasn't crud, it was code, an aggressive, invasive worm that could infect other systems if it could find a way, and a code she had cracked long ago when she had first stolen Rover from its nefarious masters. Instinctively, she concentrated on that foul program and drew in a deep breath, then blew her own code out gently on the vile mass; it flared, dimmed, then dissolved into dust, leaving only the clean blue structure behind. Pidge knew now that she could control that. Without the bad code blocking her from the systems, she could indeed steal the tools of the Empire and turn them against their former masters. So long as she had a minute or two to focus her mind, no Galran computer was safe! With the green Lion backing her up, perhaps she would be able to steal entire armies, entire fleets!

Pidge grinned fiercely at the ruined Sentry, peering hard at it for more secrets. It was easy to see into it now, and what she found buried in the heart of it made her pause in astonishment. There it was—a mechanical soul _in potentia,_ drifting silently in the same dream state as the Lion had shown her. She could give it a name and summon it to life, even as the Lion had been summoned. Any such life that she called into existence would know her for its mother and love her even as Rover had done, but she held back. Bringing the Sentry to life wouldn't do either it or her any good. The cortex was half-crushed and anything living in it would quickly go insane. She turned her inner eyes then to the little drone sitting next to the Sentry and got a shock: it was totally empty, dark and ruined as a burned-out house, as empty as the dead world she'd seen in the Mindscape. No witch had ever succeeded in returning true life to the dead, and now she saw why.

Pidge opened her eyes with a pained gasp and collapsed weeping into her chair, mourning for the small brave life that had been lost.

 

“You're leaving?” Allura asked Bantax.

“We have to. Kolivan has called us to hunt.” He paused for a moment, a wry expression flicking over his face; he still had dragon flashbacks now and again. “The Quintessence stockpiles are top-secret and heavily guarded. If we are to raid them, we must have information. The Blades of Marmora have taken heavy losses of late, and every member must contribute. We will leave Zaianne with you, as copilot and contact.”

“And because she won't leave Keith.” Coran observed.

Bantax nodded, rubbing absently at one shoulder. That had been quite an argument, and she'd nearly dislocated his arm to prove her point. “She will continue his training. He has great potential, and we don't waste that sort of thing.”

“He's not going to quit his team, you know,” Coran said, giving Bantax a suspicious look.

“We know,” Bantax reassured him, “we are proud of him, and wish him to continue. Our techniques will make him many times harder to kill, and that serves both purposes well. Kolivan had hoped in the past that at least one of us would become a Paladin, you see. This is close enough.”

Allura nodded. “Very well. Go carefully, and good luck.”

Bantax sank down on one knee before her, bowing formally. “We will do our best, my Lady. You have been very kind.”

Bantax flowed to his feet and took his leave of them, and less than an hour later all but one Blade had gone. Once again the Castle was too big and too empty, although Lance was more than a little relieved about one Blade's absence. Helenva had found that he was great fun to tease both on the training deck and off, and had harried him unmercifully when she hadn't been helping to bring Allura up to speed.

“The others were pretty cool, but I'm not going to miss her much,” he grumped one morning over his plate of fried imbek. “She liked to sneak up behind me and pull my ears just to see me jump. I thought that I was done with that sort of thing when Marcia went off to college. I kept wanting to yell for an adult, but hey, she's the adult! That's not like some sort of weird Galra mating ritual, is it?”

Modhri chuckled. “No, but it is perfectly normal for an elder sister to hassle her younger brothers that way. It keeps them sharp, you see; after a few years of that, nothing and no one will be able to sneak up on them undetected ever again. It's a little unusual in adults, but not unheard of. Particularly not when the girl is thinking about choosing a boyfriend.”

Lance groaned. “And you guys mate for life, right?”

“Oh, yes, when we can find a mate at all.” Modhri glanced adoringly at Lizenne, who answered it with a possessive smile.

Lance groaned again and buried his face in his hands. “No. No, no, no, _no._ I can't settle down yet! I haven't shared the magnificence that is Lance with anywhere near enough of the universe yet! I'm only eighteen!”

“Relax, she wasn't serious,” Lizenne said reassuringly. “You would have known if she was, trust me. Would the magnificence that is Lance please pass the tobels? Thank you.”

Lance glared around at his snickering tablemates. “And how would I have known? Is she into tossing her boyfriends over her saddlebow and riding off into the sunset?”

“No,” Zaianne replied, although without much humor, “she would have slung you over her shoulders instead. She never had a chance to learn civilized behavior when she was little.”

Lance raised his eyebrows at Keith's mother. “Why's that?”

“Her entire Lineage was destroyed when she was no more than a cub.” Zaianne replied. “Her uncles had been passing information to the Blades for years, and were caught at it. How she managed to escape the slaughter, even she doesn't know, since her memories of that night are foggy at best. She spent four years running feral in the deep reaches of Simadht before we were able to track her down, and she injured three of us quite severely during her capture. It took a great deal of effort to remind her that she wasn't an animal. Helenva has no love whatsoever for the Emperor or any of his agents, believe me, particularly not for the Ghamparva, who are sworn to destroy the only family she has left. Try to humor her, Lance. The fact that she is treating you like a younger brother is very encouraging.”

Lance felt horror freeze him; his own family wasn't quite as large as the average Galra Lineage, but the thought of losing all of his relatives in one short night was devastating. “I... I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

“It's not uncommon,” Keith said darkly, glaring at his breakfast. “I've been talking with them, and... well, let's just say that they didn't join up because it looked like fun. A lot of them didn't have any other choice.”

Zaianne nodded, her expression stony. “Myself included. I will not go into details while we are eating. Suffice it to say that neither Zarkon nor his appointed Governors will permit open dissent in their own people.”

“Huh,” Hunk said glumly, “and here I thought that he was just being nasty to other races.”

“Most of the time, he is,” Lizenne waggled a fork admonishingly at him, “I have mentioned before that we had gotten used to him, for the most part. Many Galra even approve of his crackdowns on those who haven't. Don't make that face at me, Pidge, there are a lot of parallels in your own planet's history.”

“I know. I don't have to like it, though, and I know what happened to those tyrants who did that sort of thing.” She made an even more grotesque face. “It feels sort of weird sometimes, knowing that I'm one of those things that happened to a tyrant. And I'm probably going to happen to him again. A lot.”

“At least you'll be in good company,” Coran said cheerfully, “Voltron's got a fine, long-standing tradition of happening to people that deserve it. Why, we had cadets lining up around the block once, hoping to qualify to become part of that roving object lesson, or at least a part of the fleets that followed along after it to help mop up what they missed. Apropos of that, Allura...”

Allura swallowed a mouthful of something green and nodded, casting a stern look at Zaianne. “I'll want to get you habituated to the Castle's drive today, Zaianne. The sooner that we have a backup pilot, the better. It may take some persuasion.”

Zaianne smiled. “AI's can be stubborn things. It wouldn't be the first time that I've wrestled one into submission.”

Allura rolled her eyes. “You could just try asking it nicely. Why must you always be so eager to fight?”

“We're predators.” Zaianne shrugged. “Violence is a large part of our racial makeup. You would have to be one of us to fully understand it, I expect. If it makes you feel any better, I find your talent for sweet-talking others into doing what you want them to do to be blackest sorcery.”

Allura giggled. “It has its uses.”

The two ladies left to go fiddle with the drive not long after, and Modhri asked Lance, Coran, Keith, and Hunk to help him with one of the ventilation branches in the depths of the Castle. Pidge lingered over her breakfast and wound up helping Lizenne clear the table. This was quite deliberate, and Lizenne had a fairly good idea of why. “Made a breakthrough?” she murmured quietly while slotting dishes into the cleanser.

“Yeah,” Pidge replied in a low voice, “a few days ago. I found out how I hacked that Sentry, and brought Rover to life. And why I can't bring him back.”

Lizenne gave her a surprised look. “Oh, dear. All at once?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

Lizenne turned and spread her arms, and Pidge took that offer of an embrace to heart, wrapping her arms around Lizenne's waist and holding on tight. Lizenne held her close for a long moment before murmuring, “Count your blessings, girl. When I found out what I could do to living organisms and why death was permanent, I had no one other than Tilla and Soluk around to hug. Very comforting, but very prickly.”

Pidge giggled and pulled away, straightening her glasses. “It's not just that. I've got a busted-up Sentry in my lab, and I found out why nobody's been able to crack their code. They've got a... well, it's sort of a trojan horse.”

“I don't know what that means.” Lizenne said, slotting in another platter.

“It's a packet of bad code in disguise that sneaks into a computer and then fouls everything up.” Pidge explained, “Only the Sentry had an aetheric version that makes it loyal to the Emperor. Did anyone tell you what happened to the Castle during that party on Arus?”

Lizenne smiled. “Yes. Keith had much to say about numvill. It doesn't taste very good, does it?”

“It's awful. It's just that Sendak installed his own crystal after he busted up ours, and it wound up corrupting the whole Castle. Allura lost her dad again to that thing, and almost got us all killed.” Pidge shook her head. “That was not a good day. Then later on when we went to the Balmera again to get the big crystal for running that giant teludav ring, the Robeast that got trapped there broke loose. It had corrupted the crystals around it. That's seriously nasty malware, and it smells like evil.”

“A very distinctive reek, and it explains much. And you can clear that bad code?”

Pidge nodded and handed her the last serving bowl. “Yes, although I'm not really sure just how I came up with it. It... just sort of came naturally. I introduced it into the Sentry, and the bad code shriveled up and blew away. I could have brought it to life, like Rover or the Lions, but it was too badly damaged to do that without driving it crazy.”

Lizenne went very still, her eyes distant for a long moment. “You have some sense, then. You're stronger than I'd thought. And you made these discoveries with or without the help of your own computer?”

“Without,” Pidge said, “I just listened to it, and there it was.”

Lizenne placed the bowl very carefully into its slot and then leaned on the unit. “You've got your thumb right on the place where _Tahe Moq_ translates into this plane of reality. Have you tried this on living things yet?”

“Not yet.”

Lizenne nodded. “Be very, very careful when you do. A living thing, to borrow your metaphor, is little more than a machine made out of organic or semiorganic proteins. The analogue is clear, but living things are far less forgiving of having their shapes and systems changed suddenly. Unlike machines, live things feel pain and fear, and those stresses can cause whole new problems all on their own. _Never_ fail to gain the consent of your patient, be it animal, vegetable, or mineral. Treat them like things, and you will wind up corrupting yourself and everything around you with that same trojan horse.”

Pidge gulped. “I'll be careful. Do... do you think that that's what happened to Haggar and her Druids? They treat people like things all the time.”

Lizenne shrugged. “It's entirely possible. If, in the beginning, she had a pressing reason to do something and didn't bother to wait for her subject to make up its mind, that could easily have led her into what she has become. Alas, she's had ten thousand years to become skilled at her work without anyone being strong enough to curb her. Don't follow that example.”

Pidge hardened her resolve. “I won't.”

 

The Castle was on the move. It sped daringly along just outside of the orbit of the Shells of Cantus, dipping into the outer layers for some precision flying now and again, which made Allura very tense. Zaianne was an excellent pilot, but she had primarily flown small ships before this. Scouts, mostly, or the agile little ships that the Blades preferred. As it was, the Lions and the _Chimera Rising_ were flying in escort to give Allura a little more flight time, and just in case Zaianne miscalculated. The Castle's AI had not been terribly pleased about adding a stranger to the flight roster and was still liable to play dumb now and again; Allura remembered a few times where it had played a few tricks like that with her, although never in such crowded conditions. Zaianne had a powerful will, however, and her boast about wrestling it into submission had turned out to be quite factual. Coran had just reported that something under the console was cussing, and it wasn't the mice.

“ _Not the first time I've heard that, of course,_ Coran's voice came authoritatively over the comms. _“My Grandfather believed that anyone who wanted control of a ship like this had to prove themselves worthy of it—not to him, but to the ship itself. King Alfor was well up to the challenge, being the sort that you wouldn't want to get into a mental wrestling match with, and there were stories about what happened when his father took control of the Castle_ _for the first time. Quite interesting stories, actually, but in order to believe them, you have to be a touch drunk first.”_

“ _But not on numvill,”_ that was Zaianne, sounding slightly abstracted. _“That stuff tastes vile. I'd rather have a flask of horath, which at least can be used to start fires with if necessary.”_

There was a snort from Coran. _“Or polish the silver, or unclog drains. I didn't know that you people still made that rotgut.”_

“ _Says the man who drinks hair tonic.”_ Zaianne replied, sounding unimpressed.

“ _Only the very finest hair tonic, madame,”_ Coran retorted stiffly, but the Paladins could tell that he was having fun.

There was a growl from Zaianne and the Castle narrowly avoided a tumbling shell, rising up out of the debris field like a leaping dolphin.  _“Bah, sir. If you think that horath is bad, then you should have seen what one of my cousins used to brew up in the back of his tavern. On a good day, the fumes would knock all of the neighbors senseless; on the bad ones there would be hazmat teams up and down the block, carting the vats out to the quarry where they'd be able to get some use out of them before they spontaneously combusted. The neighborhood kids used to call the place 'stinks and booms', and before long, my cousin had to officially rename his tavern that because nobody would call it anything else.”_

“Oh, _quiznek,_ now we've got two of them,” Hunk said around his own laughter. “Keith, I really like your mom.”

“So do I, Hunk,” Keith replied with a smile. “So do I.”

“I'll like her a lot less if she wrecks my ship,” Allura said, wincing as the Castle made a quick dodge around another jagged shell. “Do be careful, Zaianne!”

“ _I am. This ship was willing to have my kind within its living quarters, but it's not at all happy about having me piloting it.”_ There was a muttered swearword as the Castle swerved away from yet another shell. _“I wonder if your father ever let Zarkon take it for a spin, or if your Lion's been telling it stories. Is that beast behaving itself for you?”_

“I'm having no trouble,” Allura replied, and indeed she wasn't. The Lion seemed perfectly comfortable with its third living Paladin, which was a mercy. Allura still wasn't entirely confident of her own abilities yet. “Do you want to try opening a portal?”

To Allura's relief, Zaianne did not. _“Not until I have the Castle tamed down a bit more. We will need to move soon regardless of that; we might have gotten rid of that Ghamparva ship and the tracker they put on mine, but its colleagues will be wondering what happened to it.”_

“ _True,”_ Coran said thoughtfully. _“Can't have those fellows getting underfoot. Pidge can only tickle so many ears, after all. We might head out to Parva Seven; there used to be a very good restaurant out there.”_

“ _Not recently,”_ Zaianne said in a grim tone, _“the Empire has rebuilt both moons into orbital forts; there's a military shipyard taking up most of the planet below. Not a good idea.”_

“ _Oh,”_ Coran said, sounding disappointed, _“I'm really going to miss their fried thishwizzles. How about Exkemba?”_

“ _Dead, and shattered during the Thonatic Heresy roughly six hundred years ago. Still not a good idea.”_

Coran was starting to sound plaintive. _“What about Horos, then?”_

“ _Really not a good idea—the Horoks underwent one of their mass mutations about one hundred and fifty-seven years ago, spent seventy years pupating, and have been swarming ever since they hatched out. Now, I know that Alteans were famous for engaging in close relationships with other peoples, but I think that this might be a bit much for even you... unless you're still of breeding age and willing to try something exotic.”_

“ _Madame!”_

Even Allura had to stifle a laugh at his outraged tone, although Zaianne didn't bother to squelch her humor.

“We'll come back onboard and discuss it,” Allura said, “If nothing else, we should go somewhere that might have an update for the Castle's starmaps.”

 

As it turned out, that update was closer to hand than any of them had thought. After a quick conversation with Lizenne, Pidge managed to copy the _Chimera's_ starcharts into the Castle's data banks by using herself as a translator between the very different computer systems. Pidge quite literally saw stars for several minutes afterward, but the newly-transferred charts were identical to the ones on Lizenne's ship. That and the admiration of her teammates was very sweet to Pidge.

“Techno-mage!” Hunk said happily, patting her on the shoulder as they walked back to the bridge. “Do you think you'll really be able to steal Zarkon's armies out from under him? That'd be so cool, and it would save us, like, a ton of work.”

Lance was equally pleased. “Or shut down those big battleships. Or take them over. Ha! Wouldn't that teach those guys not to mess with us? We could keep a few as our own private space yachts. I've always wanted a yacht.”

“I don't know if I can do that yet, and I need time to find out,” Pidge warned them. “I've only just figured out how to do this, and I don't know if I can do it at long distances. I'm going to need practice.”

Keith nodded. “I'm pretty sure that you'll get it. Maybe you'll get good enough to shut down a Robeast.”

Pidge blinked. She hadn't considered that. “I don't know. They're cyborgs, and Shiro was the closest thing we had to one of those. He's kind of out of reach right now.”

They sobered, considering that. The mystery of where he was and what he was doing there was never far from their minds. Allura shrugged. “Well, Sendak is still out there. If we run into him again, perhaps you'll be able to study him a little.”

Pidge snorted. “Allura, we've got two powerful ladies hanging around who are dedicated to breaking him down for dog food. If they get to him first, there won't be enough left to study!”

“Is that a bad thing?” Lance asked.

Pidge thought about Sendak for a long moment. “Scientifically? Yes. For any other reason? No. I'll ask Zaianne if she'll let me have a look before they junk him.”

“Good luck with that,” Hunk said, and then grinned. “But wouldn't it be cool if we all started coming up with super powers? I mean, Keith's already on track to becoming a super space ninja, and Allura's probably going to get elected Lion Queen of the Universe, and Lance--”

“Will become irresistible to anything female, especially beautiful alien noblewomen?” Lance suggested with a leer in Allura's direction.

“Haggar counts as one of those, Lance,” Allura pointed out sweetly. “I saw what was under that hood when I fought her, and she used to be quite a beauty. Do you really want her clinging to your leg?”

Lance shuddered all over and said, _“Aaaagh!_ You're right, holy crow, you're right, I'll just settle for being the best starship pilot ever, thanks.”

“What do you think you'll get, Hunk?” Keith asked. “Since we're all going to be super about something anyway.”

Hunk shrugged. “Knowing my luck, I'll never get motion-sick again. Or I'll finally get the hang of origami. Or I'll be able to shape solid stone with my bare hands. Whatever.”

They found Zaianne and Coran still on the bridge cross-checking the new charts with the _Chimera_ , and in Coran's case, sniffling mournfully into a large handkerchief. Apparently, a large number of his old hangouts were either gone or changed beyond recognition. “It's been ten millennia!” Zaianne was telling him sharply, “You can't expect things to continue unchanged for that long.”

“I know, I know,” Coran moaned, “but it isn't nice to have it all dropped on you at once. I'd say that I'm having culture shock, but my own culture's pretty well confined to this ship now, and everyone else's has gone all anyhow. 'Tisn't fair.”

Zaianne vented a black laugh. “The Blades of Marmora are required to give up entirely on the concept of fairness during training. I have little sympathy for you.”

“You wound me, madame,” Coran grumped, wringing out his handkerchief.

She snorted. “I don't see any blood. All right, Modhri, the charts look clean. Thank you for sharing.”

“ _Thank my awesome little niece first, but you are entirely welcome,”_ Modhri's voice came clearly through the comm, _“do we have a destination yet?”_

“Not as yet,” Zaianne cast an amused glance at Coran. “Coran names a planet, and I tell him why it's a bad idea to go there. He isn't taking it well.”

“ _I wouldn't either,”_ Modhri said sympathetically. _“We could go hide up by the outer moons of Lanteschi.”_

Both Zaianne and Coran looked curiously at the screen. “Where?” Zaianne asked.

“ _It's an artist's colony that was founded by the Garapunts about thirty years ago,”_ Modhri replied.  _ “I found it completely by accident while failing a piloting test and never got around to reporting it to my instructors. It's a habitable planet with several habitable moons, and their inhabitants are peaceful to the point of narcolepsy. I believe that the one Galra scout who ever landed on the planet went mad from sheer boredom—most Garapunts consider needlepoint to be the height of drama, and the artistically-inclined ones are even less exciting to be around. I'm fairly sure that we won't be bothered out there.” _

Zaianne looked very thoughtful. “Perhaps my colleagues can make use of the place.”

“ _Only if they stay in orbit, trust me,”_ Modhri said in a wry tone.  _ “Lanteschan Garapunts use quilting segments like other peoples use evangelicism and state-approved propaganda, so unless your lot can weaponize needlework, I advise you to keep your distance and the local vid channels turned off. We can shop there for necessities if we have to, but we shouldn't stay for too long.” _

“It sounds perfect,” Allura said. “If you would allow me to take control, Zaianne, we may leave any pursuit behind for a while.”

Zaianne nodded and stepped down from the dais. “Of course. Let us be off.”

 


	5. Hot Potato!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We just want to say thank you for all your kind support and comments for this fic, and also for those that actually went to comment on Synergy after finding Thaumaturgy. We live for this sort of thing. It's amazing to find people enjoying our work and also to have people to be fans of the show with. You are all seriously awesome.

Chapter 5: Hot Potato!

 

Lanteschi was exactly as Modhri had described it: habitable, peaceful, and boring. On the other hand, the locals were perfectly willing to convert some of Lizenne's gifted jewelry into a considerable amount of local currency, of which everyone got a portion. It also allowed everybody a little shore leave, which Allura enjoyed enormously; she hadn't been out of the Castle since they had lost Shiro. There wasn't much there that interested Pidge, Keith, or Zaianne, but Hunk immediately vanished into the culinary quarter and Lance, surprisingly enough, headed straight for the tailoring sector. Not to get new clothes made, oddly enough, but for the raw materials.

“My Grandma taught me how to sew,” he said without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “The Castle's tailor-'bot is pretty good, but I prefer to make some things myself.”

“Oh?” Allura asked, intrigued by this unlooked-for talent in her Paladin.

“Yeah,” Lance grimaced uncomfortably. “I don't think that Altean guys and Human guys are shaped quite the same below the belt.”

“Oh.” Allura said, and declined to ask any further questions.

Regardless, everyone had a good time and were wonderfully refreshed after their trip, and nobody came back empty-handed. It was this, alas, which caused some chaos in the shuttle bay's anteroom, for the mice were extremely curious as to what everybody had gotten. When you are roughly the size of a gerbil, the best way to bring interesting things down to your level is to attack the ankles of the tall people holding those things. Allura, who had played this game before, laughed and danced out of their way with ease, although Coran blundered against the doorframe and nearly spilled his tincture of paswill. Lizenne and Modhri simply took the unexpected impacts with bemused expressions, knowing full well that the mice couldn't hurt them, although the force of Zaianne's glare sent the largest mouse racing in the other direction. The Paladins, however, had other instincts where small strange aggressive creatures were involved, and yelped and staggered about as the mice rushed them. Pidge lurched awkwardly to one side, badly overbalanced, and might have fallen and crushed one of the mice under her if Hunk hadn't dropped his bags and caught her around the waist with both hands, lifting her right off of the floor.

“Careful Pidge, he said, watching the rodentoids converge on his tools and spices, “you almost... huh.”

He joggled her up and down a little. “You really don't weigh anything, do you?”

“You can put me down now, Hunk,” Pidge said.

Hunk wasn't listening. “Hey, guys, check this out. She seriously weighs nothing at all.”

He passed her off to Lance, who put down his own bags and ignored her squawk of outrage as he received her. “Nope, no more heft than a teddy bear. Keith?”

Keith, who was trying very hard not to laugh, had no choice but to agree. “I had a teddy bear that was heavier. Hey, Hunk, catch!”

With that, he tossed her high into the air. All of the Paladins had put on a good deal of muscle over the last several months, although this was far more apparent in the boys, and while Pidge might have grown stronger, she had grown no taller. If anything, she might have even lost a little weight as the relentless activity of being a Paladin had burned off what little puppy fat she might have had. Hunk caught her easily, grinned at her angry spluttering, and yelled, “Coming at you, Lance!”

Once again, Pidge went airborne. “Guys, cut that out—oof!”

“Over to you, Keith!”

Pidge squealed as she was tossed into the air again. “You creeps! I will kill you all!”

They ignored this, of course, and Keith launched her quite handily a moment later. “Hot potato!” he yelled.

“I love potatoes!” Hunk said, catching her easily and tossing her again.

The adults and the mice, who had rescued the dropped shopping bags, stood in the doorway watching as Pidge flew like a bird, screaming furious imprecations at her teammates. Allura was giggling and trying to stop those giggles without much success, although Coran was watching their game with an appraising eye. “Ah, and another fine old cadet tradition is upheld,” he said cheerfully, “although they're not doing it quite right. For a proper game of cadet-toss, you really need some more course hazards. Blankets, bouncers, spike pits, ferocious attack warzels...”

Zaianne nodded. “We did it with giant cave spiders from Bongguar. You soon learned how to snap a towel when faced with six or seven of those.”

“Madame! You were trained in the ancient art of  _ Ragmandrus?” _ Coran said delightedly.

She smirked at him. “That, and on Namtura, communal baths are the norm. I had a cultural advantage.”

Modhri looked back and forth between the discussion on one hand and the increasingly noisy chaos on the other. He sighed and stepped forward, insinuating himself into the play, nudging Lance aside so that Pidge dropped safely into his arms. She was panting, breathless with fury, and she shook an angry fist at her teammates. “Lance, I will hypnotize your sewing machine and have it staple all of you to the wall, upside down with drawstring wedgies in hot pink! Thanks for the save, Modhri.”

“You're welcome, Pidge, but they're right,” Modhri said, cradling her in his arms. “You don't weigh any more than a yearling cub. We'll have to feed you up a little. Will you grow any taller, do you think?”

“Probably not,” she admitted sulkily. “My parents are both smaller than average. Curse my short genes! I get tossed around too much!”

Lizenne came up beside them and eyed the other Paladins, who were laughing themselves sick. “Girl, you could have stopped that at any time by turning off the gravity in this room. I know that you're capable of it.”

Pidge blinked at her, then grinned evilly. She closed her eyes for a moment, and the boys stopped laughing as their guts lurched at the sudden feeling of weightlessness. Modhri pushed himself toward the wall with unconscious ease, taking hold of a handgrip there; Lizenne hitched a ride by holding onto his shoulder. Pidge cackled. “See how you like it, you jerks!” she jeered. “And don't think that I'm going to let you down any time soon!”

Zaianne watched the boys flailing helplessly in midair with a disapproving eye. “Ye gods, they're useless at this. What sort of education did you get at that academy? You were being trained to pilot spacecraft; shouldn't you know how to move in microgravitic conditions?”

“We were only flying sims!” Lance protested. “Zero-G training was going to happen next semester, but we kind of missed it because, y'know, Lions. I'll bet that Allura doesn't know this either.”

“Don't be silly,” Allura said primly, “I learned when I was three. Mother insisted.”

Lizenne bared sharp teeth in a predatory grin. “I'm going to go and get my quarterstaff. You boys need teaching, and this is too good an opportunity to waste. Pidge, you need to learn to be able to bring up that little magic trick of yours at a moment's notice. An angry Druid is not going to give you any time to think.”

“But--” Pidge squeaked.

“No buts. Be glad that we're doing this here, girl!” Lizenne waved a hand at the large, bare room. “Luxury! When I was given my speed training, I was stark naked, unarmed, on rocky, uneven ground, and both Tilla and Soluk were chasing me. I survived; you will too. Don't let them escape, Modhri.”

With that, she headed for the doors with the same ease as a shark through the ocean. Pidge whimpered. “Oh,  _ no...” _

Modhri chuckled. “Calm down. You all learn very quickly, and maneuvering in zero-G is easy.”

Pidge gave him a considering look, and then batted her eyelashes, looking up at him with wide amber eyes. “Will you teach me to space-swim, Uncle Modhri?”

Modhri snorted in amusement. “It's not swimming so much as it is acrobatics and physics. The trick is to roll with your momentum so that you always come into contact with the target surface feet-first; the rest is refining aim and thrust.”

“Foul!” Lance yelled.

“Favoritism!” Keith agreed.

“Illegal use of natural cuteness!” Hunk said, struggling for balance.

“Uncles are allowed to have favorites,” he told them sternly, “besides, she  _ is _ cuter than any of you are.”

 

It was a very informative, but very tiring training session, and by the time Lizenne had finished bouncing them off of the walls, floor and ceiling, they all had an intimate understanding of basic physics. “Objects in motion tend to stay in motion” got a real workout, as did “any action has an equal and opposite reaction”. So did “Brownian motion”. They addressed their dinner that night with gusto, although Pidge found herself faced with two side dishes that she hadn't anticipated. One was a plate of something blue with a nicely contrasting orange sauce. The other was a bowl of small brown fried things. Hunk pointed at those, gave her a hard look, and said, “Eat. You're too skinny.”

She stared at them in perplexity. “I'm not sure I can. What are they?”

Hunk indicated the blue stuff. “Coran showed me how to use the nutritional calculator. This stuff has a big load of vitamins and minerals. The other one's heavy on the protein. You're underweight for your size. Eat.”

“Is this Altean food or Galra food?” she asked.

“It's  _ my _ food,” Hunk said firmly. “Eat.”

“Yessir,” she said meekly, picking up a fried thing. It was actually pretty good.

 

Keith stayed up a little later than the others did, despite the long day and the new bruises. He'd sort of set aside evenings for quality time with his mother, and the others had the grace not to intrude. They'd played a few rounds of _Carpocalypse 3_ on Pidge's game system, then had taken a little time to just sit and watch the stars with Zaianne holding him close against her side while they talked of inconsequential things. It was the best time of the day, hands down, in Keith's opinion. Zaianne looked forward to these times as well; she had missed so much, she told him once, and wasn't willing to give up even a second of what they had now. Keith wasn't going to argue. Her presence eased things inside of him that had been clenched tight for years, and the release it brought had made a number of things much easier for the both of them. He'd always known that he'd been different from the rest of the Human race, although he'd never been able to figure out the exact reason why, and his father had refused to speak of it. His mother did speak, and would tell him little stories about their time together that filled in those empty silences, stroking his hair and rubbing her cheek against his head in a show of affection that he'd missed without ever having known it, and it brought tears to his eyes that he was glad that the others couldn't see.

Eventually, however, he found himself starting to nod off. “Gotta go get some sleep, Mom,” he mumbled, “Lizenne really gave us a hard run today.”

He heard her chuckle, soft and low. “It is her duty as your aunt. She will make you strong.”

“It's working. That's the problem.” He stood up with a pained grunt for sore muscles. “If we hadn't bulked up so much, we wouldn't have discovered that Pidge made such a good football, and she wouldn't have bounced me off of the floor so much, and I wouldn't be—ow—this sore.”

Zaianne flowed to her feet with the grace of a consummate swordswoman. “Next time you will be less sore, and less the next, until you reach the point where you can bounce _her_ around. You and the others will work together to drive her off.”

Keith puffed a tired laugh. “'We are of the pack'. Yeah. 'S what it's all about. Should be 'pride' instead of pack, though. It's a pride of lions and a pack of wolves.”

Seeing that he could barely stay upright, she steadied her son and steered him toward his room. “It's the translator, and our culture. The beasts called 'lion' that come from Earth are not the same as Altean 'lions' or the predators that hunted on Galran Prime. Galra do refer to large gatherings of themselves as a pack. I don't know what a 'wolf' is, anyway, other than a large mammalian pack hunter, although Lance sometimes refers to me as a purple werewolf. What is that?”

Keith rubbed at gritty eyes. “You don't know?”

Zaianne shook her head. “Your father's television didn't get many channels. It was mostly sports, talk shows, news and weather, and a few banal movies. I only watched it if there was nothing better to do, and I often fell asleep halfway through whatever was on.”

Keith grunted. “Werewolves are an old legend, supposed to be a curse. Some guy gets bitten by a wolf, or cursed by a witch, or drinks water out of a wolf's footprint—pretty stupid, really—and sort of half-turns into a wolf every full moon. He gets all shaggy and toothy, can't think straight, goes savage and kills everyone in sight. Can only be killed with a silver bullet. Historians think that our ancestors were trying to describe a disease called rabies, that can have that sort of effect. Some Galra look a lot like common depictions of werewolves.”

Zaianne hummed. “It is true that we're a rough bunch. Ah... but I wonder what those ancestral tale-spinners might make of this. Look.”

They were passing a series of rooms that had once served as conference halls, and one of them was occupied. Lizenne and Modhri were using it to get a little late-night exercise in, probably to keep the witch from stiffening up herself. They were performing a set of slow calisthenics together, long graceful stretches and stances, almost like a dance. Modhri had his shirt off, and Keith noted that his bones no longer stood out, and he was filling out with good strong muscle now. Lizenne was whipcord and sinew, bending and flexing in perfect time with him. As they watched, the exercise became a dance in truth, slow and sensuous, and ended with their arms wrapped around each other in an embrace more tender than any kiss.

“Are we going to have to worry about puppies?” he whispered to his mother.

She fined him a light swat on the ear. “No. Not until all of this is over and she feels safe enough to mate. That may take a while, alas.”

They headed onward, leaving the lovers to their privacy. “Mom, are you going to look for another man later?”

Zaianne sighed. “Perhaps. I'm in mourning for your father, and will not even consider the possibility for years yet. It is permissible for a woman to remarry if her mate dies, which is one of the reasons why we protect our chosen men so fiercely. Competition for even the hand of a widow is fierce. Why do you ask?”

Keith fidgeted. “Well, you and Coran...”

He couldn't even finish that sentence without getting chills down his spine. It was bad enough having the Altean bossing them around on the training deck, but as a father-in-law? Bleah!

Zaianne had to smother a bark of laughter. “He's a friend, only. Galra and Alteans aren't particularly compatible, although their ability to change their shape does help. I will want to give you brothers to boss around, in time, and Coran won't be able to help with that. You're safe.”

“Oh. Good.” Keith noticed that they'd reached the door to his room. “G'night, Mom.”

“Sleep well, my son,” she whispered fondly.

 

The following morning held nothing unusual, aside from the rogue sewing machine that had stitched all of Hunk's, Keith's, and Lance's socks closed; that at least was both explainable and in many ways inevitable. Allura was giving Zaianne some more piloting lessons after lunch when Coran let out a yip of surprise. “Transmission coming in,” he said, “direct to the Castle. Looks like a distress call!”

“Put it through,” both Allura and Zaianne commanded in unison.

Coran didn't have to be told twice. The image was blurry and out of focus, but they got the impression of small stature and a large head. The words came through fuzzily, if at all. The voice, even without the interference, was oddly high-pitched, but the urgency in it was very real.

“ _...Help... Lion Goddess... demons have returned... burning everything... town... ruins... captured... help...”_

There was a squeal, a sudden movement, and then the transmission ended.

“Where did that come from?” Zaianne asked.

“ Holfex Sector, Second Quadrant , south-southeast in the Corax Cluster,” Coran replied grimly. “Planet Arus.”

“Arus?” Allura exclaimed. “The Arusians! I gave them a communicator in case of emergencies. We must help them!”

Zaianne, however, was not so sure. “I'm not familiar with the place. Show me Arus in relation to the Empire.”

Coran did so, even as Allura sputtered in outrage. “Right here, Zaianne.”

“Remote,” Zaianne observed. “Very, very remote, almost past the Fringes even now. How advanced are the Arusians technologically, and what makes that world interesting?”

“Still pretty primitive,” Coran said, “the known population's small and they haven't quite gotten the hang of working metals yet. It's where King Alfor hid the Castle, back when everything was falling apart. The Empire knows about it, but didn't much care once we'd left. You're right; this doesn't look good.”

“ _Coran!”_ Allura snarled furiously at him, “How dare you--”

“Think like a tactician?” Zaianne finished for her. “This is a trap, Princess. The Empire has little interest in primitive peoples and undeveloped worlds. Someone is trying to draw us out.”

Allura hissed. “We can't just leave them. I promised that we would return if they needed us.”

Zaianne shook her head. “That was foolish. You cannot save them all, Princess. I do not recommend answering that call.”

“Paranoid,” Allura said coldly. “As copilot, you cannot make such decisions for the team. Coran, get the others in here. We will discuss this as a group.”

A few minutes later, the Paladins were on deck and the _Chimera_ had been patched in on the hololink. Opinions were mixed. Yes, they agreed, it looked like a trap and smelled like a trap, but it also looked like an excellent opportunity. “She did promise,” Keith said with a defiant look at his mother, “and, sorry Mom, but Allura needs the practice. She's a good pilot, but she hasn't seen any space combat in the Lions yet, and we haven't been able to get Voltron formed up since Shiro left. If we can't deal with it, we'll fall back and find another way in. I'm not going to let those little guys die because someone's getting overcautious. Besides, it was Sendak who discovered the Castle's location. If we're lucky, he might have come back.”

Zaianne still looked reluctant, but there was a predatory gleam in her eye that was echoed in Lizenne's. The witch nodded slowly. _“My declaration of_ kheshveg _still stands; peripheral he may be, but I will have him if I can get close enough. Let the Paladins play, Zaianne, they're right. Allura has little combat experience and Pidge needs to see if she can steal a ship yet, or at least force it to stop shooting at her Lion. Also Zaianne, you have yet to fly the Castle during battle as well. It is a risk, I recognize that, but I have the feeling that we're going to be heading to Arus whether you like it or not.”_

Zaianne made a gesture of concession. “Very well. I hope that we will not come to regret this decision. You have the controls, Allura.”

 

Zaianne might have been the better warrior, but Allura was a master pilot. She'd brought them into the orbits of Arus well out past its moon, and in an excellent position to see what was going on. By that time, Keith and his team were in their armor and ready to go at a moment's notice.

“ _Nice-looking planet,”_ Modhri's voice came clearly through the comm. _“Mostly forest, but there are some plains and prairies, a small desert or two, and a respectable ocean. Ah. And that would be where the invaders are.”_

There was a small dark patch on the surface, partially obscured by rising clouds—a sure sign of a forest fire. Three midsized Galra cruisers were hanging in orbit above the burn site, not even bothering to conceal themselves.

Coran frowned at them. “Looks like a pretty standard raiding party,” he said, “might be a border patrol whose commander got bored, or they were running low on supplies and decided to steal them from the locals. Wouldn't be the first time that we've dealt with that sort of thing.”

“We won't have any trouble with those,” Lance said, putting on his helmet. “We probably won't even need to form Voltron to crunch those guys up. This'll be easy.”

“Don't jinx it, Lance,” Hunk said; he'd been largely silent during the recent conference. “I'm not sure I like the look of this. Are there any other ships hiding nearby, Coran?”

Coran fiddled with the controls. “Just the  _Chimera._ Nice flying, Modhri. How do we want to go about doing this?”

“ _Lizenne and the dragons want to land on the planet and go hunting,”_ Modhri replied. _“It's been a while since they had solid earth under their feet and worthy prey to chase. If your descriptions of the Arusians are accurate, then it isn't likely that the enemy has much of a presence installed down there. Stone-age societies simply aren't worth the effort of a full invasion force. I'll be their aerial backup, and she's taking her bone spear along. They'll be fine.”_

“Her... bone spear?” Allura asked, confused.

“ _Yes, girl, my bone spear,”_ Lizenne's voice sounded downright cheerful. _“Aside from myself, I have no deadlier weapon.”_

Lance gave the comm a quizzical look. “Can't Modhri lend you a gun?”

Lizenne laughed. _“Dear boy, you misunderstand. In my hands, that spear can do a very great deal more damage than a mere blaster.”_

“She's right,” Zaianne murmured, “I've faced that spear myself. If she hadn't slipped, I might have felt its bite as well.”

Keith looked up in surprise. “When was this?”

“ _When we first encountered each other on Zampedri,”_ Lizenne replied, _“she was under the impression that I was holding you captive. We managed to work things out.”_

He gave them both a suspicious look. “I'm going to want to hear the full story of that sometime soon. Want to go and crash a party, Allura?”

“Yes, actually, I would.”

 

Five Lions streaked through space in glorious symmetry, converging on their foes from five different directions in a modified pincer attack that surprised the Galra cruisers. Swarms of smaller fighters flooded out of their bays to protect the larger craft, and the Paladins were soon hard at work dealing with them. Taking advantage of the chaos, the  _Chimera Rising_ slid past the combat zone without being noticed, heading down into the planet's atmosphere in search of the Arusian settlement. Coran watched it go for a moment, glanced back at Zaianne standing on the pilot's dais, and then turned his attention to the Lions. One Lion in particular caught his eye, although it was flying well; Allura had been paying attention during her lessons. Every Paladin had their own signature style, he knew. Although wild zontars couldn't drag it out of him, Coran was old enough to have seen multiple pilots for each Lion. Some had flown cautiously, others bravely, others with flair and finesse. Zarkon had flown furiously, and Shiro with courage and determination. Allura was going to be one of the flair-and-finesse types, which was good; those tended to survive longer than the more enthusiastic sort. Piloting the great battle machines was a job for life, but not necessarily for long.

The comm blipped, and Modhri's face appeared on a secondary screen.  _“We're down,”_ he said,  _“and I've released Lizenne and the dragons into the woods. It's nighttime on this side of the planet, which gives them the advantage. Knowing them, they'll have the ground forces mopped up around the time that the Paladins finish off those cruisers. How are things going up there?”_

Coran looked up at the space battle and smiled. “Swimmingly. The boys are giving Allura plenty of room to play, and the cruisers no room to maneuver. Five gac says that my team will finish up before yours does.”

“ _I don't gamble, Coran.”_ Modhri's voice held just a thread of warning, but one that Coran heard nonetheless. _“The enemy has set up camp on that big rock outcropping where the Castle used to be; that's where they've parked their troop transport and are keeping their captives. Zaianne, you were right, this was a trap. Just not a terribly effective one, so far.”_

“So far?” Coran asked over Zaianne's faint, triumphant _“hah.”_

“ _That outcropping's very visible from above; they were probably hoping to spur the Paladins into making a mistake with the sight of their little friends held prisoner. I just keep getting the feeling that we're only seeing the first half of a larger operation. Sendak isn't stupid. Evil as anything, but not stupid, and he would have made a full report to his superiors after they'd rescued him. This might look like a simple raiding party, but I'm not so sure.”_

“It's good to know that someone else has some good sense around here,” Zaianne said acidly. “Why didn't you speak up earlier?”

“ _Because everyone was correct. This_ is _an acceptable risk, and we all need the experience. I'm also married, Zaianne. You know that.”_

“Quite right,” Zaianne said contritely, “I apologize.”

Coran's eyebrows rose. “I'm missing something here, aren't I?”

“We're matriarchal by nature,” Zaianne told him. “Once a man has found a mate, his primary concern is supporting her and protecting the cubs. He looks to her for protection and guidance. It's instinctive, and it is very rare that a married man will disagree with his Lady. Keith's father, being Human, behaved somewhat differently, and so I need reminding sometimes.”

“That must have been quite a romance,” Coran mused, watching the red Lion burn three drone fighters to slagged lumps in one sweep.

“It had its moments.” Zaianne sighed wistfully.

 

Galra were nothing if not pragmatic. When in an uncertain situation or in an unfamiliar setting, there was no point in risking flesh-and-blood soldiers when the cheap and easily-replaced robotic Sentries were so much more effective. As a result, there were only two live Galra on-planet at the moment, and a hundred Sentries as well... or at least there had been a hundred. There were less than that now, and the soldiers were starting to get nervous. Something was out there in that midnight forest that was cutting the Sentries down like grass,  _and it was coming closer._ Abandoning camp was not a good idea—firstly, because the cruisers were under attack right now and secondly because they would have to explain their actions to a commander that might not be pleased with them.

“Lost three more just now, chief,” Private Dassik said nervously, watching the control screen with worried eyes. “Never even got a shot off. Think there might be a warrior group out there?”

Corporal Morax glanced at the force-screen pen where the natives were being held. Under the moonlight, the small, horned creatures were huddled together in terrified clumps. “Can't say. Doubt it. This lot was caught easily enough. No fight in 'em at all. Even if there was, they'd not get anywhere—they're still using weapons made out of rocks and animal bones. It ain't bone weapons that's taking out the Sentries. How many do we have left?”

“Seventy-two. No, wait,” Dassik said, sounding even more nervous. “Uh. Sixty-seven. Fifty-nine?”

There was a burst of shooting from the trees at the far end of the ancient bridge, a monstrous roar that made the prisoners squeal and whimper in their pen, and an ominous silence. Morax heard Dassik swallow hard. “Forty-one?”

“ _Pashk_ this for a game of _tharbesk,”_ Morax growled. “I ain't hanging around to see what _that_ is. Come on, let's head for the rendezvous point.”

“What, now?” Dassik said, but he was already grabbing up the more expensive equipment. “It's a little early.”

“No, it ain't.” Morax told him firmly, setting the Sentry controls to “autonomous” and shutting down the terminal. “We've carried out the orders we was given. The Lions were summoned, and there they are, chewin' up the cruisers. Let the Brass deal with what's both above and below, I say. This is their game, not ours, and I'd like to live long enough to see my nephews again. Move, soldier!”

Dassik obeyed that barked order instantly, throwing all the valuable gear into the transport and then himself into the copilot's seat. As Morax lifted the ship, he looked back at the far end of the bridge and gasped. “Corporal, look!”

A pair of huge dark shapes had emerged from the woods, flanking something smaller. It was too dark to make out details, but the moonlight glinted off of a veritable armory of long sharp spikes. Blue eyes glared up at them as the transport ship flew over their heads, and stentorian roars were audible through the hull even at this distance. Dassik shuddered, and was very glad that his superior officer had the good sense to pull out when he did.

 

Lizenne watched them go and patted her disappointed dragons on the shoulders. They'd had a lovely time bashing the robots to pieces, and were grumpy about losing their chance to pull apart something bigger. The woodlands of Arus weren't exactly their preferred habitat, but the opportunity to hunt new prey had been very welcome.

“This just makes our job easier,” she told them, “now let's finish this up. We'll want to get everybody off of this rock anyway; I expect that our friends will want to set the Castle back down for a little while, and this really is the only place that will do.”

Tilla humphed and extended a foreleg, offering Lizenne a ride. Lizenne accepted that offer with grace, vaulting up easily and settling herself in among the spikes, ready to leap off again at a moment's notice; there were still Sentries guarding the camp, and they'd need to deal with those as quickly as possible. The dragons surged forward into a gallop that took them across the bridge in record time, and they entered the camp without noticeably slowing. The Sentries put up a fight, but were no match for the great dragons. Or for Lizenne, who danced fiercely among them, her spear tearing great gashes in the Sentry's plating and lopping off heads with ease. When the last had fallen, she turned her attention to her audience, who had been watching her and the dragons in awed silence. None of them seemed to be injured, at least, or panicking, which was a mercy. Far larger and stronger sophonts had dissolved into fits of gibbering terror at the sight of the dragons before this, which spoke well of their courage, although they did flinch back when Soluk sniffed at them over the wall of their pen. Tilla, ever the practical sort, found the force-screen generator and bit it in half, dissolving their prison.

“You might as well leave,” she told the Arusians in a clear, carrying voice. “The enemy is routed and you are free.”

The largest individual, possibly a male, shuffled forward. “You... you are one of the purple ones. Why are you helping us?”

Lizenne smiled. “I am a friend of the Lions, who have answered your call.” There was a flash from above, making them all look up; visible against the stars were the descending flames of a ship in orbit being destroyed. Lizenne laughed and raised her spear at the heavens. “See! This is a night of Heroes, my friends, see how the Lions deal with those who would have devoured you. They will have done with those soon, and will bring their fortress back to rest here once more, for a little time. We had better not be under it when they land, eh? Come on, let's go see if there's anything salvageable of your village.”

“It has been destroyed,” someone wailed, “again! And it's full of those metal demons!”

Lizenne chuckled wickedly, flicking a bit of Sentry out of her spearhead's serrations. “No, it isn't. We've dealt with those already. Have no fear of the dragons, people, they've hunted well tonight. Besides, I want a closer look at your architecture, anyway. Your artisans are very good at stonemasonry and brickwork. You'll have to replace the roofs and doors, but the structures themselves are still sound. Care to give us a tour?”

 

Allura was drunk on her own success. One cruiser had blown itself to pieces when her Lion had sliced into its drive section, and now, for the first time, she had taken part in forming Voltron. The sheer power of the gestalt engine was almost more than she could comprehend, and it flowed through her mind in a tide that was almost unbearably sweet. She heard herself shouting commands to the others, felt them respond, and saw another enemy ship smashed asunder. The third, already damaged from the efforts of the red and yellow Lions, fled. She would have demanded that Voltron give chase, but it leaped away at warp speed before she could give the command. Furious at the enemy for absenting themselves, she looked around for more targets before a familiar voice broke through the fog of adrenaline.

“Princess!” Keith yelled, “Calm down, they're gone. We've won, and you did a great job!”

Allura suddenly realized that she was exhausted, parched, starving-hungry, and very much in need of a bath. “Thank you,” she rasped on a dry throat. “You all were magnificent. Disengage and dock, everyone... oh. Lance, would you please swing down and put out that forest fire?”

“Can do,” Lance replied, already heading planetward.

“Thank you. Coran, are the screens clear?”

“ _Clear as a bell, Princess,”_ Coran replied promptly. _“That was an excellent battle, people, particularly excellent! You do your father proud, Allura. Modhri says that we're all clear to land; Lizenne and the dragons had a bit of fun of their own down there, and the Arusians are fine. Zaianne wants you on the bridge to coach her while she lands the Castle. Might as well get some more practice in.”_

“We'll be right there,” Allura replied, glad that she had someone else on hand to park the support ship.

Voltron broke up with ease, and it was with new confidence that she piloted her Lion back to its hangar, although her steps were a little wobbly when she exited the cockpit. She supposed that she would grow used to it in time, although...

She paused, struck by a sudden realization. If Zarkon had felt that same rush while in battle—every battle, and for over two decades, that might well have contributed to his obsession. It would be all too easy for an Altean, much less a predatory Galra, to become addicted to that feeling of omnipotence. Shiro had handled it far better than she had realized, and admired him all the more for it. “Keep him safe,” she whispered up at the great metal beast, “bring him back soon.”

The Lion did not respond, not that she had expected it to. All of her queries as to how their lost Paladin fared had been met with stony silence. She made her way back to the armory to shuck off her suddenly heavy protective gear, and then headed for the bridge. She, too, had reason to praise Hunk's native genius—she hadn't gone three steps into the room before he'd shoved a beverage packet and a bowl of turbali cubes into her hands, and for a moment or two nothing else mattered. The others, she saw, were also working on similar snacks, although Pidge had been given twice as much as the others and was working through her basket of obbic balls with a resigned look on her face.

With Allura's help, Zaianne managed to land the Castle properly just as the sun was rising over the horizon in a blaze of golden glory. It was good, she reflected, to be back in familiar surroundings again, and the sight of the crowd coming across the bridge to meet them was even better. Modhri and Lizenne were walking among a knee-high stream of excited Arusians, followed by Tilla and Soluk, who had happy aliens clambering all over them. Coran grinned at Allura. “Shall I break out the numvill, Princess?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: This chapter addressed one of my big squawking points. Am I the only one out there who feels that Pidge seriously needs to gain a little weight? Anyone who gets blown off their feet the way she did during the drying cycle of the decontamination process or dragged around like a rag doll by Ulaz (although I'm sure many of us would not protest to Ulaz dragging us around...) seriously needs to eat more. Or put anvils in her pockets.


	6. Learning Experiences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things pick up and stuff hits the fan in this chapter.   
> As always, thank you to those who left kudos or comments. They're what keeps us writing.

Chapter 6: Learning Experiences

 

It was several hours before Pidge was able to pry herself loose of the admiring throng. Thanks to Hunk and Modhri, the party food and drink were actually edible this time, although the haltiberry pastries made the Arusians hyper. Feeling nostalgic, she wandered out onto the Castle's front landing where she and Shiro had spoken together all those months ago, and felt his absence keenly. She wasn't the only one taking a little fresh air, she found. Lizenne was perched on what had once been a fountain next to Allura, who was noticeably drooping.

“Hi,” she said, sitting down next to them. “Needed a moment, too?”

Allura nodded. “While I recognize that a proper hostess should always be within sight of her guests, that battle has tired me out. My mother would skin me for dereliction of duty regardless of my physical state, and tell me of how her grandmother once presided over a party of six hundred guests during a protracted siege, all the while in full armor.”

Lizenne chuckled. “My mother was much the same, only she really would have shaved me bald if I'd fouled up on her time. She did that once to an interior decorator who insisted on pink curtains. His family was very upset, but not as upset as he was—his fur didn't match the décor. How are you feeling, Pidge?”

She shrugged. “I'm okay. A little disappointed. I can't steal ships yet. Speaking of stealing, Modhri's had to rescue your spear from the Arusians twice now. What is that thing made of, anyway? It looks like bone, but it's harder than steel!”

“It is bone. The hind shinbone from a Zampedran yulpadi, in fact, which are large grazing animals that have specialized for speed. Since their one real weakness is their legs, the bones have evolved to be nearly unbreakable.” Lizenne smiled nostalgically. “Not too difficult to snare, thankfully, and delicious in stew. Before you ask, the spearhead is a fang taken from a tambok, a large predator that will eat just about anything. No drama was wasted in the getting of it, since the creatures shed their teeth and grow a whole new set every month whether they need to or not.”

Pidge and Allura stared at her. “But it's as sharp as a razor!” Allura exclaimed, “I saw one of the Sentries you beheaded.”

Lizenne nodded. “Fresh tooth. Tamboks drop their fangs all at once, you see, and remain toothless for three days. During that time, if you're careful, you can lure the creature into some sort of pen—we used a ravine—and hold it there for the next month by keeping it well-fed on ulnoops, which are soft, squashy, and soporific. At the end of the month, you'll have a fine selection of blades to work with, and a tambok that is all too happy to leave without making a fuss.”

Allura smiled. “Perhaps I should find some time for us to run wild on Zampedri. It sounds fascinating.”

“I'll pass, thanks,” Pidge said, leaning back against the sun-warmed stone. “So, what's next?”

“The Arusians have asked me for a little help in rebuilding their town. I figure that it's the least we can do.” Allura shrugged. “Modhri says that the fire did very little real damage. It shouldn't take long.”

Lizenne nodded. “A few days, maximum, with the dragons and the Castle's drones hauling the heavy stuff. Tilla and Soluk are willing, and if you and I can tickle the local greenery into helping, we shouldn't have any trouble.”

“That's good, because Zaianne's not happy again.” Pidge leaned forward, stretching stiff muscles. “She wants to leave as soon as possible, and I can see where she's coming from. Like it or not, Allura, we attract trouble. Zarkon may be down for the count, but the Empire still wants us dead. One of those cruisers got away, remember, and they're probably reporting in right now.”

Allura frowned. “I will not leave my obligations unmet. We will just have to work very quickly.”

Lizenne quirked her eyebrows at her companions. “Then we will have to broom our guests out and go to bed early, or else bed them down on the ballroom floor with the dragons. Zaianne makes a very good point, dear; it isn't paranoia when they really do want to kill you, and capturing the Lions has been a primary objective for a very long time. The sooner we leave, the better.”

 

Allura attracted some hard looks from her Paladins over the next few days; they were heroic as anything, but she had volunteered their time and energy without asking them first. Again. Shiro might have put up with that out of respect for her rank, but without him around to enforce her will, the troops were close to mutiny. Keith's opinions were the same as his mother's and had been all for picking up and leaving, and while Hunk was always eager to learn something new, none of them knew all that much about architecture. It was Modhri who had saved the day in the end, allowing them the easier work of directing the drones and the dragons, and offering encouragement to Pidge and Lizenne. That generally came in the form of boxed lunches; the repairs to the buildings required a lot of wood, and Lizenne decided to give Pidge a lesson or two in manipulating living trees. It was a great way of getting building material without doing any more damage to the already fire-scarred forest, but it wasn't easy. The bulk of the labor fell to the Arusians themselves, of course, but the little people didn't seem to mind. It was _their_ town after all, and they were very proud of their skills. Coran and Zaianne helped out as well, keeping the workers fed and watching the sky for threats. As a result, the job was done in an astonishingly short time, although they were weary at the end of it.

Pidge found herself sitting at the edge of the forest, trying to catch her second or third wind, looking down into the rather pretty little cup of a valley wherein nestled the town. The scars from the fire were still visible, but the rebuilding was well under way, and Pidge was very glad that her part in that was done. A soft movement behind her made her look up. Lizenne, no less worn-looking than she was, stood leaning against a handy tree. “Allura's finishing up with the Arusians and will join us directly,” Lizenne murmured softly. “The boys have already started back to the Castle along with the dragons. Hunk says he wants a big good-bye dinner and then to sleep for a week.”

Pidge snorted. “He's the one who wanted to teach the Arusians about plumbing. _And_ made me shape him a ton of piping out of tree roots. I'll admit that it's pretty cool—I mean, it's a living pipe network that doubles as a filtration and purification system, but that was a lot of work! It's a good thing that we had the drones.”

“Yes, it was. And having that little pond nearby to supply the water was handy, too.” Lizenne patted her head. “That was very good work, by the way. I'll have to remember those tricks of yours the next time I get marooned somewhere. Clean water is always of paramount importance.”

Pidge leaned back against her leg. “Yeah. Lizenne, do you think that the others will start developing magic tricks?”

“I'm not the person to ask.” Lizenne sighed and kicked a pebble down into the valley. “Coran has observed several teams in the past and would know far more than I do about what gifts the Lions might bestow... or enhance. Keith, if he has anything aetheric in his nature, will probably do as his mother has done and channel it into his swordfighting ability. Lance will likely also play to his strengths as a pilot. Hunk... Hunk may well have something along the lines of your own talent. You might play with machine minds and plants, dear, but he can wrangle the hardware with surprising skill. Never underestimate a supermechanic. Allura, now--”

“Yes?” Allura asked, pushing her way through the undergrowth. She, too, was tired and dirty and looked a little strained. “What about me?”

“You have made a breakthrough recently, and I wish that I had been present to see it.” Lizenne continued easily. “We were discussing super powers, and you definitely have some.”

Allura blinked and looked down at her smudged hands. “You mean magic.”

Lizenne nodded. “The Histories are suspiciously silent on whether or not Alteans produced witches, although the level of aetheric science present in the Lions and in the Castle suggest that they did. Haggar herself is proof of that, and I very much doubt that she was the only one. You did something extremely unusual during that battle at the Center, girl, and we're going to have to find some time to explore that. If you do have that much native power in you, you _are_ going to have to learn to control it. If you don't, it may kill you.”

Allura nodded. She knew very well that she shouldn't have survived the bolt of magic that Haggar had struck her with. Poor Antok had died of a similar blast, and he'd been far larger and stronger than she had been. She, however, had absorbed the tangle of forces and had turned them around, destroying the Quintessence-extractor completely with no more injury to herself than a mild headache and short period of emitting a rosy glow. “I'm not sure exactly what I did. Haggar blasted me, but I... absorbed it, and held it, and then channeled it out into the thing that she'd disabled Voltron with. I knew that I had some talent, and Father had me channel it into the Castle's teludav system. I didn't know that I had this much! I can't tell if it's my own, or if I was drawing from the Castle's Balmeran crystal.”

“The crystals might have had something to do with it,” Pidge suggested, “you nearly killed yourself reviving the Balmera, remember, and you collapsed again after moving Parzurak. Maybe you sort of... stretched out your magic muscles a little? I don't have the right words for it, sorry.”

Lizenne was frowning thoughtfully. “That could be a factor, yes. I don't know enough about the Balmera to say for sure. Remind me to go and have a talk with that creature at some point, will you?”

“Of course,” Allura said, and then smiled winsomely. “Will you teach me witchcraft, Aunt Lizenne?”

Lizenne barked a short laugh. “Directly after I've had a proper meal and a rest. You're out on your feet and Pidge is no better, and I expect that the dragons will say the same! Come, let us--”

“ _Lizenne!”_ Modhri's voice emitted from Lizenne's communicator, cutting her off short. _“Get to the ship—either ship—and right now! Where are Pidge and Allura?”_

“They're with me,” Lizenne said sharply, “what's going on?”

“ _Zaianne was more right than we'd thought. A whole fleet of Galra warships and what looks to be a flagship have just entered the system, right between the orbits of this world and the next! We have to leave now, or risk losing the planet, the Lions, or both. I've got the_ Chimera's _helm, and I'm tracking your comm. Get to one of the burn-offs as fast as you can run. I'll meet you there.”_

Lizenne hissed, baring her teeth at the sky. “We'll be there. Come on, girls, run!”

Pidge scrambled to her feet and dashed after Lizenne and Allura as they streaked away, cursing her short legs and trying to keep up. They had gone no more than a few hundred yards before something high above roared and a gust of wind nearly knocked them off of their feet. Looking up, they saw not the _Chimera,_ but the vast purple hulls of Galra ships, their surfaces blazing with the fires of reentry. Smaller craft swept down out of the clouds, seemingly heading straight for them.

“Troop landers,” Lizenne gasped, lungs heaving for breath and grabbing at her comm. _“Tajvek._ They're going for a capture. Modhri, tell the Castle to lift. Get it out of here! We're going to have to fly like a monster out of myth to escape as it is. They can't be allowed to catch the Lions on the ground!”

“ _Already done. Zaianne had to deck Coran, but they've initiated the countdown already. Get to the burn! They've spotted me, and if they get to you before I do, I won't be able to pick you up.”_

“Acknowledged,” Lizenne said, then turned to her wheezing companions. “Move!”

Allura gritted her teeth and sprang forward, but Pidge, already exhausted from a hard few days, staggered and nearly fell. Allura danced back, caught her up, and handed her off to Lizenne as though she weighed no more than a stuffed toy. Pidge found herself slung across the Galra woman's shoulders and carried away, and couldn't help but be grateful even as she knew she was slowing them down.

They reached the edge of the burn just in time to see the _Chimera_ being driven off by a swarm of fighters, shields flaring under the assault of their pulse cannons. In the distance, a thundering roar echoed over the forests as the Castle lifted. Lizenne dropped Pidge and began to chant softly, golden threads forming in strings around her hands as she readied some sort of weapon that might deter the enemy long enough for Modhri to land. Whatever it was, they never saw it, for a gloating voice cut across her cantrip.

“Well now, what do we have here?” Sendak said, ambling out of a copse of charred trunks a little distance away, accompanied by a squad of soldiers and Sentries. “Your friends have abandoned you, rogue witch... ah, and the Princess and a Paladin as well. How cowardly the heroes become when faced with overwhelming odds.”

Lizenne uttered a scream of hatred and loathing that Allura knew would haunt her dreams for months to come and aimed her bolt of golden power at him. Before she could fire, however, he lifted a small dark object in one hand and pressed a button. The air rippled; the ball of gold burst, and all three of them were slammed off of their feet by a tremendous impact that struck just behind the eyes. They fell senseless and lay still.

Sendak smiled at the device that Haggar had given him; she'd said that it would knock the witch out, although it seemed to affect other targets as well. “Take them alive,” he ordered his men, “sedate the witch. There are those on Parzurak who wish to see them.”

“Yes, sir,” his second-in-command said, waving his men forward and indicating the rising silhouette of the Castle, “and their ships?”

“The Prince will handle those,” Sendak said, grinning evilly as the author of his misfortunes was cuffed and shackled, “whether or not he takes them or destroys them is not my worry. It doesn't matter. I've got what I came for.”

 

Zaianne flew the Castle as though it were a scout ship, cursing in a blue streak as she forced every last iota of thrust and agility out of the big support craft, shields shuddering from the intense fire the enemy was directing at them. Coran lay slumped against his console with a black eye; she regretted having to hit him, but his concern for Allura would have gotten them all killed. She'd locked the bridge doors against the Paladins as well, lest they try to force her into something suicidal; they'd get the doors open eventually, of course—Hunk was with them and he could hotwire just about anything, but by then they'd be safely away. In the meantime, she had work to do.

She saw the _Chimera_ rising up from the atmosphere, apparently in pursuit of a landing craft, and being pursued in turn by a crowd of fighters. More fighters joined that swarm, forcing the _Chimera_ to veer away or be destroyed. “Modhri!” she barked in a tone that no Galra man could disobey, “To me!”

Reluctantly, the blue-green ship joined her, shields flickering from the beating they'd taken.

“Lock on to these coordinates,” she said, sending him a string of code. “Follow me.”

She felt the Castle resist her as she warmed up the teludav system, but she refused to allow it to override her. Behind her, she heard a door hiss open.

Zaianne heard her son shout, “Mom, no!” but it was already too late.

“ _We have no choice!”_ she hissed at the Castle and forced a portal open, taking them all far away.

They came out in a patch of blessedly empty space. Zaianne relaxed with a long sigh, then turned, one hand on the hilt of her knife. “I will not apologize,” she said bluntly.

“You _left_ them!” Keith accused angrily, hand on his own blade. “How could you?”

“It was not an easy choice, but no one else was willing to make it,” Zaianne replied evenly. “We cannot afford to lose the Lions.”

“We couldn't afford to lose Allura or Pidge either,” Lance snarled, “or Lizenne! Who's going to pilot their Lions now, and what's going to happen to Modhri and the dragons?”

Zaianne's expression was as blank as a statue's. “Other pilots may be found. We cannot lose the Lions, or we have lost everything. Modhri and the dragons will see to their own affairs.”

Hunk glared at her. “That's cold, lady.”

“She's right, though,” Coran lurched up, rubbing at his bruised eye. “I hate to say it, but she's right. This sort of thing has happened before. Plenty of times, actually, which was why there were always cadets in training back in my day, just in case an acting Paladin or two got themselves killed or captured. It was an accepted fact that any of them could be cut down at any time. They were soldiers, and soldiers often get into bad situations. There was only ever one Voltron, and no way to make more. In any case, she really didn't have any choice but to run for it when she did. Here's a playback of what was going on outside.”

He touched the controls, summoning a replay of their desperate flight, a visual that left the three boys gaping in horrified amazement.

“Voltron might have been able to handle all of that,” Coran said sadly, “but we were missing two Paladins. It was either run or die, and you know it.”

“ _Quiznek.”_ Hunk swore, sagging. “Well, now we know where you get your piloting genes, Keith. Wait, what was Modhri doing back there? He was chasing that troop lander, even though he had like a million fighters after him. Coran, get him on the line, will you?”

Before he could, the comm blipped, and Modhri's face appeared on the screen. He looked terrifyingly grim, although areas of damp fur below his eyes suggested that he'd been crying.  _“Have we come to a safe place?”_ he asked in a flat tone.

“We have,” Zaianne replied tonelessly. “Do you wish to come over?”

“ _I do. I must check on the dragons, and there is a thing that I must ask in person.”_

Zaianne drew in a sharp breath, but nodded. “Very well. Please extend the docking tube, Coran.”

When he appeared on the bridge a short time later, Modhri was carrying Lizenne's bone spear, the expression on his face speaking louder than words that he was more than ready to use it on someone. The Paladins tensed; they had _never_ seen Modhri this angry before, and it was a frightening sight. To their shock, he approached Zaianne and knelt before her, laying the spear on the floor at her feet.

Modhri bowed his head and began to speak in a rolling, formal voice. “Lady Zaianne, I beg a boon. Lizenne, Pidge, and Allura are still alive. They have been taken by the enemy, upon whom my mate has declared _kheshveg._ They may yet survive for some time. You are Lizenne's sister, having adoptive cubs in common, and you have asked and received the privilege of _ghren-khesh'vaaht._ This I must ask: find her and destroy those who have taken her. I beg that you bring her back to me alive. If she has died, I beg that you bring to me the skull of her murderer. My life is yours until that time.”

Zaianne actually shuddered, but she laid both hands on Modhri's head and responded formally: “I accept this gift and this task. A wound upon my sister is a wound upon myself. I will destroy the one who has harmed us. Should I fail in returning her to you alive, I will accept your suit, should you wish to offer it. If you wish peace instead, I shall grant that as well.”

Modhri heaved a shuddering sigh. “I am grateful for the Lady's grace.”

Zaianne gave him a look of deep sympathy. “I am grateful to have been offered this duty.”

He swallowed hard and placed the spear in her hands, his long fingers lingering on the shaft. He stared blankly into space for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet. “I'll be with the dragons. They need a good polish, which should calm them a little. They're as upset as I am.”

“Take your time,” Zaianne said gently.

He bowed to her again with a mumbled, “My Lady,” and walked out of the room.

Everybody stood in awkward silence for a long moment, watching him go. Hunk fidgeted. “That was something cultural, wasn't it?”

Zaianne nodded, her hand tight upon the haft of the spear. “He's very traditional in some ways. In the old days, if a married female was taken by force from her mate, he had the right to approach her sister in this fashion and ask for rescue or vengeance. In return for that favor, he promises to serve her, up to the point of sacrificing his own life to save that of his mate's. It's a terrible responsibility, for she will not only hold his fate in her hands, but the fate of any children he might have. Theoretically, the sister so asked is allowed to refuse, but that has only happened a handful of times in all of our history. If she is unable to pull off the rescue, she may take him as her mate if she hasn't already got one. She is also required to provide a quick end if he chooses to commit suicide rather than live without his mate, and she will be required to adopt his children, if any.”

“ _Suicide?”_ Lance blurted in horror. “He can't suicide! We need him!”

“And he needs Lizenne.” Zaianne tested the edge of the spearhead with one thumb, drawing a single drop of purple-red blood. “A woman whose mate has died is free to take another if she wishes, but widowers generally prefer to end their pain before it drives them mad. We will discuss our plan of attack as soon as he pulls himself together; I am now obligated to throw us right into the mouth of death itself to rescue our friends, or die trying. However--” she smiled. It was not a nice smile. “Lizenne is a very powerful witch. Allura has all the signs of becoming another. Pidge is a Technomage, a fact that the enemy is not aware of. We may wind up having to rescue the Empire from them, rather than the other way around.”

 

Allura woke slowly, feeling bruised inside and out. Her ears rang and her mouth tasted of ashes, and she was lying on a hard surface that was making her back ache. She also felt sticky and her scalp itched, and when she tried to move, she found that both her hands and feet had been bound. She snapped fully awake with a gasp, and found herself in a small, dim room without windows or doors. Standard Galra holding cell, she recognized that easily enough, having been held in one before. She was alone, too, which was not a good sign. Where were Pidge and Lizenne? Were they even still alive?

There was no way to answer those questions other than to wait and see, so she settled for propping herself up in the corner of the cell to wait until something happened. It might have been hours later, she wasn't sure, but something eventually did. Allura heard the heavy tread of armored soldiers approaching, and looked up when they stopped outside her cell. A harsh voice said, “Open it up, the Prince wants a look at her.”

“There haven't been any sounds from in there,” another voice replied, “she may still be out.”

Allura heard the first speaker snort. “So? That'll just make it easier for both of them. Guns at the ready—I was told that this one's a fighter, and there's no point in getting careless.”

The door slid open, revealing a trio of soldiers and four Sentries. She glared defiantly at them. “Where are my friends?” she demanded. “Who is this prince?”

One of the soldiers smirked and waved a small key at her. “Prince Lotor, Zarkon's son. Be polite to him, girl; Haggar wants you alive and he won't cross her on that, but he's got ways of making your life miserable until then. Haggar wants your friends alive, too; same rules apply. Now sit quiet and let me make it so you can walk. Don't get any ideas about kicking me, 'cause it would hurt my boys' feelings to have to blow a hole in your leg.”

Faced with several blasters pointed directly at her, she sat still while the soldier unlocked the cuffs holding her ankles, although she couldn't quite suppress a shiver of outrage at his touch, or the furious gasp when he hauled her to her feet by the scruff of her neck. As they marched her down the hall, her mind spun furiously. What did she know of the Prince? Very little, actually; neither the Blades nor Lizenne had managed to get close enough to him for a good look at his abilities, and she'd had even less of an opportunity to find things out. Lizenne had said that he was going to be trouble. Arrogant, no doubt, and clever. The trap that had been set on Arus was certainly an indication of his skill as a tactician. He was probably evil as well, for she couldn't see how any spawn of the Emperor could survive to adulthood in Zarkon's household without a certain amount of ruthlessness, much less fight through the throng of hopefuls to achieve the rank of Crown Prince. Lizenne had also said that he was a “bit of a romantic”, and that worried her because Bantax had mentioned that the Prince liked pretty girls, regardless of species. Galra romance, from what little she'd been able to glean from her sometime housemates, could occasionally turn rough, and if they got up to some of the same sort of scandalous behavior that certain members of the Altean Noble Houses had, that could lead to a number of very sticky situations. Those were funny enough when listening to Coran talk about them—and at ten thousand years' distance—but she wasn't laughing now.

She was led to a large, ornate door with a pair of live guards standing at attention on either side; they saluted to her escort, and one touched a comm pad on the wall. “They're here, your Highness.”

“ _Bring her in,”_ a voice replied, and Allura's hackles rose at the smug tone. She hadn't even seen him yet, and already she hated his guts.

The door slid aside, and a nudge between her shoulder blades started her forward. The room was large, as befit the private quarters of royalty, with fine furnishings and the Imperial banner prominently displayed as wall hangings. There was even a modest chandelier that some poor maintenance tech probably went nuts trying to clean at least once a month, and a huge bank of screens that took up an entire wall. Watching the starscape beyond was a tall Galra male standing with his back to her, a cascade of silver-purple hair flowing past his shoulders. When he turned, Allura got a shock; the Prince held a startling resemblance to Keith. Taller, of course, and older, and muscled like a professional swordsman; she suspected that Keith was due for a growth spurt or three, but the shape of the face, the breadth of the shoulders, and the large, wide-set eyes were almost identical. Allura couldn't help but wonder what family Zaianne had belonged to before she'd joined the Blades, for the Prince's mother could easily have been related to her. This was what Keith might have looked like, had he been a full-blooded Galra. One look at his expression, however, convinced her instantly that she liked the hybrid version a lot better. Lotor might have taken after his mother, but the proud stance and overweening arrogance in his eyes came directly from his sire.

He smiled at her in a way that stirred odd emotions in Allura's heart; she knew from listening to her cousins long ages ago that his classic good looks would have had legions of ambitious women at his feet, her own relatives included. In her, they inspired only a heartfelt desire to claw his face off. He dipped her a mocking little bow and said in a surprisingly mellow tenor, “Princess Allura, the last scion of the Altean royal family. It is a rare pleasure to greet you, even like this.”

Allura drew herself up in as queenly a fashion as she could muster and replied in a voice that had icicles forming on it, “I wish that I could say the same, sir. I am not accustomed to receiving invitations at gunpoint.”

Lotor smirked. “Sendak is an efficient sort, but I will admit that he lacks polish. I doubt that you would have accepted an invitation from me in any other fashion, however. You have been keeping low company of late, Princess.”

“Cream is not the only thing that floats to the top,” she replied witheringly. “It suits me to choose companions of individual worth, rather than substandard persons from a single, exclusive class.”

Lotor's topaz eyes glinted, and his smile grew appreciative. Any minute now, she just knew it, he would say that he liked a woman with spirit. Instead, he waved an imperious hand at the guards. “Leave us. I wish to speak with her in private.”

“Highness...” one of the guards protested, only to be cut off by another wave of the aristocratic hand.

“Begone. I think that I can handle one small lady, particularly one whose hands are bound.” Lotor commanded. “Now go. Wait outside if you feel you must. I will summon you in a little time.”

“Yes, your Highness,” the guard said reluctantly, and they filed out of the room, leaving Allura alone and feeling exposed.

Lotor flowed to one side with a swordsman's grace and began to circle her, his height allowing him to observe her from all angles. Allura knew this trick, she'd seen an uncle use it once to drive one of his rivals into an incoherent rage, but it still made her feel small and grubby and provincial. “A fine young lady such as yourself should keep better company,” he murmured, “particularly one so beautiful as yourself. You would clean up well, I expect. Alteans are so rare these days, pent in their bubble as they are. Haggar still goes there now and again for reasons of her own, but no one else is permitted to. One wonders what she might find useful in your people.”

“I am hardly the person to ask,” she replied coldly, although she felt a pang of dread for whatever purpose that Haggar had for her fellow Alteans. “What would I know of the personal desires of an ancient witch?”

“More than I would. You have been hanging around with at least one example of such lately.” Lotor shook his head in gentle reproach, eyes glittering with malice as he leaned in closer than she liked. “Rogue witches are dangerous, Princess. They have a way of enforcing their will over others, not necessarily to their benefit. You should be glad that I've removed her from your personal space.”

“Remove yourself, sir!” Allura snapped, taking a step back and hating herself for doing so. “What have you done with Lizenne?”

Lotor shrugged. “Contained her. She is a traitor to the Empire and is destined for a traitor's fate, along with that smaller creature that Sendak insists is the green Paladin. Personally, I can't quite believe that. It is far too small and young to be playing with my Father's toys. You, on the other hand, are a far worthier candidate, although not for the Paladins. Forget them, Princess, they are nothing. Peasants, traitors, nobodies. Haggar wants you as well, possibly to turn you into something vile to harass Voltron with, although I might be persuaded to convince her otherwise.”

He stepped in closer again, his smile becoming loathsome, and she shrank away from the hand he rested upon her shoulder. “Come now, Princess, there are things that are far worse than death, and what goes on in Haggar's labs figure highly upon that list. Do convince me that I should spare you from that fate.”

Something in Allura's mind went _click._ Her thoughts suddenly became very sharp and clear, and concerned only with solid facts. Fact number one was that she was alone and unarmed in a room with a dangerous enemy.

Fact number two was that her hands had been cuffed in front of her.

Fact number three was that said dangerous enemy was not wearing armor.

Allura made some quick adjustments to the bones in her hands and fingernails, the thumbs in particular. In the meantime, Lotor's hand had lifted to her face and was about to caress her ear...

She snarled and lunged forward, driving her thumb claws through the Prince's fine silk shirt and into the soft flesh just beneath his breastbone, then jerked both hands hard to the right, ripping cloth and skin alike.

 

Outside in the hallway, the guards heard a shrill shriek of shock and agony. That in and of itself wasn't anything new, since the Prince could get rough with his playthings now and again. What _was_ new was that it was the Prince doing the shrieking. They rushed in to see the Prince clutching at his side, blood streaming from a long tear in his shirt. The Princess, eyes wide and expression rageful, was still holding up a pair of blood-streaked hands. Wisely, the guards drew their weapons but came no closer.

“Guards! Take her away!” Lotor shouted; the guards didn't move. “What, are you all cowards?”

“Let me call in some Sentries to do that, Majesty,” one of them said, “that was the Thing With the Thumbnails, and a wise man doesn't argue with that.”

“You're all wearing armor!” Lotor exclaimed, dripping on the expensive rug.

“And she's liable to go right through a breastplate next time,” the guard replied shortly. “I like my guts where they are, Prince, and a lady all set to go off bang is something that no man should have to face. I'll just be a minute...”

Allura lowered her hands as the Sentries filed in, although the glare she gave Lotor was a weapon all by itself. “It is good to see that the Emperor still employs sensible people,” she said in an icy tone and allowed the robots to escort her out of the room.

 

The flagship's powerful drive brought it back to home port without further ado, although the prisoners saw little of that. Allura was aware of their arrival only because she was once again taken from her cell and marched away. Not to the Prince's stateroom, thankfully; she hoped that he was too busy getting his torso sewn up to bother with anything else. She did catch one brief glimpse of the others, though. Pidge was still out cold, draped over a soldier's shoulder, and Sendak himself was carrying a somnolent Lizenne away. Allura would have called out to them, but it wouldn't have done any of them any good, and concentrated on her own plight for the time being. She had no idea of where she was now, and no way to escape that she could see; a major factor in that was the fact that the guards had cuffed her hands behind her back this time, just to keep her from eviscerating anyone else. Word had apparently gotten around, and the guards weren't taking any more chances with her. She wasn't sure whether to be frustrated or relieved when she was pushed into another holding cell at the end of the march.

 

Elsewhere, Lizenne found herself in a similar plight, and was equally unable to do anything about it. While she was aware, it could not be said that she was awake; somnolene did that to a person, if it didn't simply knock you cold. It was like being underwater. Sounds were vague and distorted, and her vision was tinted sort of blue and kept sliding away at odd angles. She was as limp as a pile of seaweed and numb along with it. Her sense of smell, however, couldn't be so easily fooled, and that was telling her exactly who was carrying her right now. Somewhere in the more distant reaches of her mind she was in a froth of fury and disgust, but she couldn't reach it. She couldn't reach the golden forces of _Tahe Moq_ either, and that was even more worrying.

A shadow loomed up, along with a billow of scent that she had known since early childhood—antique fur and a faint, earthy sweetness that she'd come to recognize as Altean. Haggar. She'd never liked Haggar. One of her earliest memories had been of that old woman picking her up out of the tangle of her brothers for inspection. Lizenne remembered that she had been very upset about being woken up so abruptly, and had bitten the witch hard enough to draw blood. The taste of witch's blood. Different from that of her brothers, she'd bitten them often enough to know the difference. Different from her own, and _wrong_ in a way that she hadn't been able to describe until she had first come to Zampedri. The dragons had given her a name for that wrongness, and that name was _evil._ The dragons. They had been so different from every other people she'd met with, and she missed them.

Haggar was speaking to Sendak, her words glowing black and purple on the air, and they smelled bad. Sendak replied, his words round and orange and hard as iron, jagged with malice. She couldn't read them, but she hated them all the same. There were other shadows behind the witch, silent and stinking, and they took her from him, wrapping her in shadows until she was blind and half-smothered. Lizenne struggled to find air and light and found only another familiar stink, a blend of many stenches and one that she'd hoped never to smell again. Blood of many types. Strange chemicals. Metals and machine oils, helplessness, madness, and pain. The hot yellow scent of raw Quintessence and the shining starry blue of the purified stuff. Modhri. She'd practically waded through that stink to rescue what had been left of him, shattered and moaning in the charnel bin. Her heart ached for him, then and now. Then, that he had nearly been ruined past repair. Now, that he had not been able to save her. Or the others. Where were Allura and Pidge now?

These thoughts shimmered and dispersed; somewhere, she had been thumped down onto a table, and her limbs secured to it. There was a stinging sensation in what might have been her leg, a distant, creeping pain that spread into her veins and set them on fire, burning away the drug in her blood. Lizenne bucked against her restraints and vented the filthiest curse she knew of even as her mind cleared to a painful sharpness. Someone slapped her sharply across the face, and she looked up into the glowing yellow eyes of her worst enemies.

“Language, girl,” Haggar gloated at her. “You have been very naughty. It is high time that you took up a more useful line of research as one of my Druids. Ordinarily, this would be a more ceremonial process, but you are not the most compliant girl I have ever met with.”

“ _Kheshveg,”_ Lizenne snarled, fury warring with terror within her heart. “Know that I will see you dead at my feet, witch. I will have your skull for a _shurgha_ cup, and my Lineage will drink spring wine from it for a hundred generations.”

Haggar only smiled. “You are not the first to make that threat, and you will not be the last. All who have declared  _kheshveg_ against me have wound up as my loyal servants, or merely dead. Let us see which of those you will become.”

 

By the time that the guards came for her again, Allura was having real trouble maintaining her composure. Quite aside from the stresses she'd already suffered, she hadn't had anything to eat or drink for at least a day or two; she could and had altered her metabolism to a greater level of efficiency, but her reserves were starting to run low. Dehydration was dangerous for Alteans; having evolved from a swamp-loving creature, getting enough water was absolutely necessary. Her pride forbade her from begging the guards for a drink, but pride would soon fall before necessity.

Such considerations vanished when a pair of Druids appeared seemingly out of nowhere before her, and she wasn't the only one who flinched at their sudden appearance; the guards didn't like being near these creatures either.

“We will take the prisoner,” one of them said in a harsh, almost mechanical voice. “You are dismissed.”

The guards wasted no time in handing her off and scrambling away, and Allura shuddered at the Druids' touch when they grasped her arms and pulled her forward. “What do you want of me?” she whispered, wishing desperately that her Paladins were here.

“You have power,” the other Druid said in a voice like a rusty saw blade. “Haggar will take that power from you. Then you will serve other purposes.”

Allura jerked hard, trying to free herself from their clutches, but they possessed a terrible strength, half-dragging her into a laboratory and strapping her to a table without apparent effort. Haggar herself appeared a few minutes later, smiling evilly, although she seemed to have injured one hand. It looked, Allura thought, as though someone had bitten her.

“Where are Pidge and Lizenne, you monster?” Allura snarled, jerking at her bonds. “If you've hurt them--”

“Save your concern for yourself, girl,” Haggar said, “you can do nothing to aid them now. You should have died when I blasted you, and yet you did not. I will find out why.”

“Why are you doing this?” Allura demanded, “You're Altean! You have betrayed everything you are by serving Zarkon, and you've destroyed everything that should matter the most to you!”

Haggar only laughed. “And you are as naive as a newborn. I have chosen to be what I am for reasons of my own, and what matters most to me concerns the Emperor alone. Let us begin.”

What followed next was the most singularly unpleasant experience that Allura had ever had in her entire life. It was as though she had been seized in a giant fist, which then attempted to pull her inside out, a ghastly wrenching sensation that threatened to pull her tendons loose from her bones. Instinctively, she pulled back, just how, she could not rightly describe, but she pulled it into a hot bright knot beneath her heart and released it all at once in an effort that forced Haggar back two paces and slammed the Druids into the walls. Haggar humphed and tried again, this time pouring a great rush of power into her. Allura reacted the same way she had before, struggling for control of that unlooked-for mechanism within herself. She was starting to glow again, a rosy radiance that crushed the table beneath her when she channeled the power she'd been given through it. Haggar tried again, trapping her within a web of purple and black energies, this time trying to uproot Allura's very soul, from the feel of it. Allura pulled in a deep breath and took the web with it, launching the spell back at its caster with everything she had, then lunged forward in an attempt to throttle the witch, who resisted with vigor. They wrestled back and forth like this for some considerable time; Allura might even have won that fight if she hadn't already been outnumbered and nearly spent. In the end, one of the Druids ended the fight by hitting Allura on the back of the head with a broken pipe.

“The girl is a perfect mirror,” she heard Haggar say angrily as she slumped to the floor. “A perfect mirror! There haven't been more than six or seven of those in all of Altean history. I can't take her power from her without the risk of losing my own, and trying to turn her into a Robeast would probably destroy the whole apparatus. Bind her, and put her in with Lizenne. Your new sister will need feeding soon anyway.”

Allura moaned helplessly as she was cuffed and shackled and dragged away.

 


	7. Triple Dragon

Chapter 7: Triple Dragon

 

Pidge came awake with a start, dazed and confused and aching all over. “Where am I?” she groaned, and then the memories all came back in a rush. “Sendak. The Arusians. Oh, no!”

She tried to push herself upright and found that she'd been bound hand and foot. She had to fight down a wave of panic before she could think straight again, and managed, with some effort, to push herself upright against a wall. “Okay, Pidge,” she told herself, “we're in a real pickle this time. Gotta stay calm. _Think._ I'm the green Paladin. I am the queen of pickles. Dammit, now I want pickles. Gah.”

She didn't have her bayard, either, having left it in her quarters because she wouldn't need it to grow piping for Hunk, now would she? She glared at the cuffs holding her wrists. “What do I have? I've still got my glasses on, so I'll be able to see, at least. Um. I've got a few nuts and bolts because that carpenter wanted to know more about screws. I've got... pocket lint. And a dead bug. Yuck. Not helpful. I'm tied up, trapped in a cell on an alien spacecraft, going where no Human except maybe us has gone before. Really not helpful.”

Her head ached sharply and her belly was a churning pit of emptiness, and if she didn't find the little Paladin's room soon, certain parts of her would make their own arrangements. She glared at the cuffs again, and noticed that they were electronic; two little lights, one green, one red, glowed at her in the dimness of the cell... the doors of which were also electronic, in a spacecraft that was full of robots, that probably had an AI running the majority of the life-support systems. Pidge smiled and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the ache in her skull, and had _a look_ at the mechanisms around her. They were very purple, reeking of that dark-horse virus. Pidge let out a breath loaded with her own native antidote, and her cuffs promptly shimmered a clear, pale blue. “Let go,” she murmured, and they snapped open immediately, freeing her.

Pidge stood up and stretched, flexing stiff muscles and hearing her joints and spine crackle. There was a view-slit in the door, but she was too short to see anything through it. That didn't matter, because she could feel the two Sentries standing outside, and more down the hall. Once again, she cleared her immediate area of that stinking purple taint. “Open up,” she told the door, which slid apart easily, and “stay put,” to the Sentries, which remained still.

She needed information, and fast. In order to send a distress call to the Castle, she needed to know where she was, where Allura and Lizenne were, and a way to send a message. For that, she needed a terminal. Oh, but first... “Where are the restrooms?” she asked a Sentry, which replied, _“Take a right down the hall, first left, then the second right. Third stall from the left is out of order.”_

“There's always one,” she muttered, and then made her way quickly toward relief.

Thankfully, Galra sanitary arrangements weren't much different from Human sanitary arrangements, and soon she was searching for an information terminal that wasn't already manned by live soldiers. This wasn't easy, because they were _everywhere,_ and she was beginning to tire out. The answer to both problems lay in the single Sentry she found standing outside of a pair of double doors, and it was the work of a moment to bring it under her control. “Pick me up,” she told it, and was soon up on its back, enjoying the feeling of being taller than everybody else for once. “Take me to the nearest terminal that isn't in use, quickly,” she instructed it, “and don't let anyone see us!”

The Sentry promptly moved off, clanking down the hall at a brisk trot. Pidge had to stifle a slightly manic giggle; she hadn't had a piggy-back ride in years. The robot could sneak pretty well, too, as it turned out, responding to her need for concealment by ducking around corners and even tiptoeing past groups of off-duty soldiers. They found the terminal after a little while, but it wasn't unmanned. One of those off-duty Galra had snuck into the room to look at a little space porn... or at least that was what it looked like. She might have found some comfort in that some things really were universal, but this was not the time. “Knock him out,” she whispered to her Sentry, “I need that computer!”

The Sentry put her down and stepped up smartly to the soldier, turning him around and laying him low with a well-placed punch. Pidge was already at the keyboard, but had to stop and stare at the image on the screen for a moment. The female—well, it was probably a female—wasn't Galra. It wasn't even a mammal, probably, and she couldn't see the attraction. “Perv,” she muttered, and cleared the screen along with the taint in the machine itself. “Show me,” she told it, “where is everybody?”

Answers in plenty flowed onto the screen. She was currently aboard Parzurak Spacehab, which wasn't entirely a surprise. Parzurak was currently orbiting Tanrudak Gamma instead of Golraz Beta. She had no idea where that was, but presumably Coran would. Both Lizenne and Allura were sharing a cell three decks above her, close to a large section labeled: **RESTRICTED—Aetherics and Cybernetics only!!**

“Haggar's lab,” Pidge whispered. “Oh, no. I've got to get them out of there. And get a mayday out. Uh. Can I do that without alerting the whole fort?”

Unfortunately, she couldn't. The comm network was under the eye of actual live people at all times, and they had the power to override an unauthorized call within seconds... but that meant that she had a slight advantage. Organic reactions were a lot slower than mechanical ones, especially if the operators were bored or distracted. If she kept it short, sweet, and simple, she might be able to get a message out. More, actually, if she shifted a little data around. She reached out, sliding her senses into the network and locating the command center, finding the channels she wanted and composing a quick bit of text. In English, which the Galra wouldn't recognize at all, and in a mix of idioms that many Humans wouldn't, either. With the flick of a finger—the middle one, since she was in a bad mood already—she moved the unconscious solder's porn vid to the control center's screens before entering the Castle's address into the “Send” box, which did indeed distract the monitors for just long enough. “I've seen enough hentai...” she murmured with a grin and sent her message, then shut the whole system down. It was time to go and rescue her friends.

 

Far away, Coran, Modhri and Zaianne were trying to find out where their three friends had been taken. They had been forced to leave before they could discover the enemy's origin, and even if they had managed to discern their heading, those ships could have changed course a dozen times before arrival. Modhri, at least was adamant about one thing.

“They will be taken to the Center,” he said grimly. “Haggar will want the Princess, and she has been thinking about taking Lizenne for years. Pidge is a Paladin, and would make an excellent lure to draw the rest of us in with.”

That might well have been true, but Parzurak was missing from its usual spot at the heart of the Empire. Coran had reasoned that a thing that big was easy to spot, and that people talked; he was currently running a search on the galactic newsnets for mention of the thing's movements, and Zaianne was querying her own organization's private channels. None of them had been expecting to get a call directly from the Center, and certainly not in a mysterious alien language. Keith, who had been brooding in one of the defense-drone stations, recognized it immediately.

“Let me see that!” he said, hopping up and running over to Coran's console. “That's from Pidge!”

“How can you tell?” Coran asked. “Can't make heads or tails of that mess. What does it say?”

“It says: 'H' is for hurry, 'E' is for urgent, 'L' is for love me, 'P' is for please,” Keith translated. “Huh. I didn't know she liked the Beatles.”

“Insects?” Coran said, mystified by this.

“Nope. Well, sort of. The second line says: 'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, get your butt over here. This is no moon! Tan is a color, Rue is regret, and Dak was India's pony express. What comes after A and B if it's all Greek to you? Stonehenge won't like these priests and royalty and scary aunts don't either. On the loose, Rock Dove.'”

“If that's code, then it's a pretty good one,” Modhri observed. “I can't understand any of it.”

“I can,” Zaianne said with a smile. “I spent a great deal of time watching Earthly media once. Khaeth, get the others in here. They need to see this.”

Hunk and Lance were also able to decode that strange message in a trice, although they had to help Coran and Modhri along. “The first line's from a rather silly entertainment vid,” Zaianne elucidated, “and it basically means 'help me save our friends from hostile invaders'.”

“The Obi-Wan and 'that's no moon' bits are from another vid, a real classic,” Hunk said, “and refer to another distress call and a really, really big evil space station where the evil Emperor hung out. You were right, Modhri, she's on Parzurak.”

“And it's orbiting Tanrudak Gamma,” Keith continued. “Do we know where that is?”

Modhri nodded. “It's in the Opiolore Cluster, and is primarily a service station for the Empire's biggest ships. What's a stone henge?”

“Stonehenge is an ancient circle of trilithons on Earth, and it's been used as a temple on and off for the last five thousand or so years.” Lance said, trying to look well-educated. “The earliest priests there were called Druids. Nothing like as nasty as Haggar's, even with the human sacrifices. Allura and Lizenne are having trouble with them, I think, but Pidge's escaped and is running wild. Even so, she's going to need help.”

Coran gave his mustache a tug, a sure sign of progress. “Then how about we go and oblige her?”

 

Pidge was running, although not wildly. The problem with off-shift soldiers is that they eventually have to go on-shift again, and if they don't show up on time, people start looking for them. She'd been forced to leave her Sentry behind to slow them down, and the alarm had been raised. Panting, she ducked into a lift, made it take her three levels up, and then sent it to the very topmost level and told it to stay there. At least she was on the right deck now, but if anything, it was more heavily-populated than the one that she'd just left. Almost immediately, she ran right into a large group of soldiers, who immediately gave chase. Bright bolts of blaster fire scorched the decking as she ducked desperately around corners, trying to find a place to hide. She had to stop, finally, hearing pursuit coming from behind and the rattle of footsteps coming from around the next corner. Next to her was a locked door, and she gave it a slap with one hand. “Let me in!”

Her speed training paid off, or perhaps it was just desperation; either way, the door slid open, and she dove through, closing it just before her pursuers rounded the corner. It was very dark inside the room, and very quiet, and all she could do for a few minutes was to flop down and gasp for breath. Nobody outside tried the door, thankfully, and it soon grew quiet out there as well. Pidge hauled herself to her feet and reached out with one hand, finding something that felt like a storage rack. “Lights on,” she said, and then stared in wonder at what the light panels revealed.

It was indeed a storeroom, and quite a large one.

It was being used to store security drones. Hundreds of them, sparkling-new. Roughly a third of them were the type that exploded.

Pidge stood there, gaping at this incredible wealth, and then started to giggle. It wasn't long before that giggle turned into a cackle that even a seasoned sorceress might admire. “Jackpot!” she declared, and blew every last trace of bad code out of the room. “Activate!”

All around her, nine hundred blue optic sensors clicked on.

When she left that room, she did so with the best guide-and-guard team possible. The drones were semiautonomous machines, apparently linked into the station's primary database, which allowed them to know just about everything that it knew—such as just where any given prisoner might be being held. If she could get Allura and Lizenne loose, then who knew what they could achieve?

Assuming that she could get there. There was still a lot of distance between her and that cell, and anything at all could be lurking on this level. She was hoping vaguely that a sandwich shop might be among those things when she turned a corner and came face to face with Haggar herself. Both yipped in surprise and jumped back, Haggar vanishing in a puff of dark vapors and reappearing a few meters away. “You!” she screeched, “How did you get loose?”

Pidge reacted instinctively; witches had figured largely in her thoughts already, and so she responded in the only way that was appropriate. “Fly, my pretties! Fly!”

Haggar found herself being mobbed by nine hundred subverted drones. Each drone weighed in at about six pounds by the Earthian measure; catching one of those in the pit of the stomach when it was traveling at roughly fifteen miles per hour was no laughing matter. Catching dozens of them was even less so, particularly when a third of them carried a load of explosives. She teleported away, and again, and again, but Pidge now knew how to tell where a witch was going to come out, and the drones were waiting for her each time. Pidge laughed breathlessly to see one of her deadliest enemies being pummeled so soundly, then gifted a few dozen of her drones with that technique and set them to harassing the witch while she ran away with the rest. Behind her, she heard a shriek of exasperation, a crackle, and a loud explosion. _Must have hit one of the bomb units,_ Pidge thought with an evil grin, and ran on.

Pidge found room for one more burst of genius by the time she'd found the right cell, instructing her drones to produce holograms of her running, and then sending them out to lead the pursuit astray. She also gave them the right to defend themselves; anyone trying to shoot or reclaim them would meet with her wrath. Watching several hundreds of herself dashing away down the maze of corridors was an interesting experience, and she was still smiling when she opened the cell, slipped inside, and shut the door behind her. Her smile vanished, however, when she saw Allura slumped in one corner, glowing faintly pink and staring in horror at Lizenne, who looked terrible. Lizenne was on her hands and knees, attached to to the floor by four shackles, and she was breathing in great shuddering gasps, her eyes wide and unfocused, blazing in the dim light. Pidge could see her veins clearly under her fur, glowing a dull purple, and the fur itself was rippling like tall grass in a high wind. As Pidge watched, Lizenne's outline seemed to blur and her entire body to darken slightly before coming back into focus. “Pidge,” Lizenne rasped hoarsely, her voice barely recognizable, “free... Allura. Run. Better... yet, kill... me.”

Pidge darted over to help Allura, but didn't even think about fleeing or murder. “What did they do to you?”

Lizenne groaned horribly, an agonized sound more like that of an animal in pain, and gasped for breath. “They... have put... their poisons... their hexes into me. In... a short time... I will break these bonds... and drain whoever... is nearby... of their Quintessence. Then... I shall be... a Druid. Under Haggar's control. You will... have to kill me... then. It will be... easier... to kill me now.”

“No!” Allura cried, “Fight it!”

“I am doing that,” Lizenne ground out. “I will not be... an easy servant. I have tasted her blood. I will seek... more... if she does not... stay vigilant... at all times.” Lizenne vented a horrible laugh, harsh and mildly insane. “She must sleep sometime.”

“Is there any way we can help?” Pidge begged. “I can't... I can't do it. I can't kill you.”

“Nor I,” Allura said, “I will not do that to Modhri.”

“Modhri.” Lizenne said and shuddered, tears in her voice.

“Tell us how we can help!” Pidge demanded.

Lizenne growled, sounding like a leopard on the verge of losing its temper. “The spells... are trying to force me... to change... my nature. I am... trying to do that... but in... _aaah!..._ a different... way. You both saw... the dragons... do that.”

“Yes, right before you went shopping for a new starship,” Allura said. “You're trying to turn into a phoenix hound?”

Lizenne's head shook slowly, the fur turning another shade darker. “No. I have never been a... phoenix hound. I have... however... been a dragon... in the Mindscape... many times. I know how... but I don't have... the strength... and I have been... poisoned.”

Allura wrapped her arms around Lizenne's shoulders. “Then I will lend you strength! Take all that you need!”

“That... would kill you,” Lizenne gasped. “No.”

Pidge moved to her other side and copied Allura's embrace. “I'll share. Come on, do it! We're not going to give up on you like that!”

Lizenne hissed. “I think... you are both... mad. We may... come to... regret this. But I think... I see a way. Allura, think of... how you change... your shape. Use... what is left... of the power... they fed you. Pidge, recall how you shaped... those pipes... and repeat after me...”

Lizenne began to chant, clearly and slowly so that the other two could echo her. _“Tazal hai, tahe moq... epara vos mandak... kepal ahdi, tahe moq... sural vash...”_

Allura and Pidge chorused the short, simple words, feeling something strange rising up around them. Glimmers of faint light, gold, green, and rose hung in the air, and their skin tingled with unnamed forces.

“ _Arahd kesh... bas valek... keva Allura, keva Katherine... keva Lizenne... amud Zampedris...”_

Pidge blinked in surprise at the sound of her real name; when had Lizenne heard that? She didn't have much room to think about that, for her vision blurred and an extremely peculiar sensation of melting overcame her.

“ _...kepa hani... val tandus... oraz tolun hazek... tahe moq... hamakarrr...”_

They had said the last cantrip almost in unison, for by the final word, they were all speaking with the same voice. Quite literally, as it turned out, and the last syllable ended in a yowl, for the vocal apparatus that had made the sound was no longer capable of speaking Altean, English, or Galran. Where three young women had huddled together there was a single Zampedran prairie dragon, mostly gold-scaled with stripes of green and rose running from nose to tail-tip. The spiny beast sagged to the floor, trying to sort out three sets of thoughts at once.

_What the heck just happened?_ Pidge exclaimed, trying to focus all six of their eyes.

_Lizenne, are you all right?_ Allura asked.  _What did we just do?_

_We are a dragon. It was the only way to do this without getting all of us killed or worse,_ Lizenne replied, sounding exhausted.  _We are not quite done, alas. We've foiled the shape-changing spells, but our blood is still full of poison. Pidge, you saw how those tree-root pipes could act as a filter system. Look at our veins, our immune system. Can you do something similar?_

_I'll try,_ Pidge said.

_Good girl. Allura, help her. Don't let her waste her strength._

Pidge had to show Allura how to view things from an Aetheric point of view, although Allura perceived things rather differently than Pidge did. Instead of roots or circuitry, Allura saw their shared body as a huge wetland, with millions of waterways serving as a circulatory system, their very flesh forming the earth around it. The poisons were a ghastly chemical spill, a fast-spreading mix of pathogens, corrupting everything they touched.

_I think that I see how to do this,_ Allura said,  _Pidge, help me with this! We need to draw the toxins off and break them down so that our body can get rid of them._

_Yeah, I think I see what you mean. We just need to make a few adjustments_ here  _and_ here...

_Don't forget to reverse the changes once we're clean,_ Lizenne told them,  _I'd rather that we not develop an autoimmune disease later on. You're doing fine._

The dragon's body twitched and groaned, panting as its body temperature rose to combat the infection.

_That does not feel good,_ Pidge said queasily.

_Remember what I told you about how living systems don't take sudden changes well?_ Lizenne said.  _We'll need to find something to eat very soon. We have enough strength to complete this, but there won't be much left over._

It seemed to take ages, but eventually the last traces of toxin had been filtered out and the immune system returned to normal. All was not well, however. _Lizenne, there are... I'm not sure how to describe them,_ Allura said, _they look like symbols made of purple flames, and there are three of them in our brain and four more along our spine._

_Hexes,_ Lizenne replied. _Control modules, if you will. That's how Haggar keeps her Druids obedient._

_It looks like a botnet,_ Pidge said in disgust. _I used to have to debug Mom's computer all the time before I wrote some code that blocked that sort of crud. I can crack those, but... Lizenne, I'm going to have to shut you down._

_What?_ Lizenne and Allura chorused.

_It'll be like a really deep sleep, and it'll just be your consciousness. Everything else will still be running just fine._

Lizenne sighed. _How long will I be out, and what do you mean by 'everything else'?_

_A few hours, minimum. Maybe more, if only to be safe. You'll need the time out for recovery._ Pidge gulped, and the dragon licked its chops. _The 'everything else' is your automatic systems, instincts, and subconscious, and things like that._

_Ah. So, with my compromised higher thought processes closed down for repair, I shall be a beast in truth. You do realize what that means, do you?_ Lizenne asked. _It means that you two will have to do the rational thinking for a very large, very hungry wild predator. Feral Galra are very dangerous, girls. Feral dragons are worse. You will have to be firm with me, so that I do not kill and eat the first poor soldier who gets too close. I draw the line at cannibalism._

_So do we,_ Allura agreed fervently.

_There is no other way?_ Lizenne asked.

_No,_ Pidge said,  _I'm sorry._

_Then do it. Directing me will be much easier after I've had something to eat. Then we may rampage as we wish._

_Sounds like fun,_ Pidge said, making a few adjustments here and there.  _Maybe you'll remember some of it later._

_If we survive this. Good night, children._

They felt her mind sink down below the surface, and Pidge carefully popped all seven hexes in quick succession. She had a brief moment of triumph, then nearly panicked when the dragon lurched to its feet with a furious howl. Rage boiled in the mighty heart at being taken from her pack and crammed into this tiny, evil-smelling place, and she desired deeply the crunch of her enemy's bones between her fangs and the hot sweet taste of their flesh. It took considerable effort to soothe her enough to keep her from breaking her spines on the walls.

** :OUT: ** the dragon demanded deafeningly.

_ Okay, okay, hold on, _ Pidge said desperately,  _ touch your nose to the door there. _

The dragon turned awkwardly in the confined space, lost her footing on the slick floorplates and fell against the door. Any contact worked, Pidge decided, and opened the door, spilling the dragon out into the hall in a heap with a squawk of surprise. She was on her feet in an instant, however, sampling the air and growling like an engine.

**:HUNT:** the dragon declared, and moved off down the passage at a determined trot.

_ Just what have we gotten ourselves into? _ Allura exclaimed, half-overwhelmed by the sensory input she was receiving. Dragon senses were far more acute than Altean ones were, and suddenly she could see in colors that she had no name for, hear sounds that she hadn't known existed, smell—and taste—everyone and everything that had passed this way in the last month, and feel the faint vibrations of station personnel through the floorplates. This was quite aside from the predatory nature of the dragon herself, who was paying close attention to all of it.

Pidge was handling it better, but she'd done something like this before.  _ Try picturing yourself as riding on her back,  _ Pidge suggested, _ this is pure aetherics, and it's good to have a handy metaphor. Have you ever been on a riding animal? _

Allura tried the suggestion, and found herself sitting behind Pidge amidst a forest of sharp spikes. Lizenne wasn't as large as Tilla or Soluk, being much younger than they were, but she was quite large enough.  _ Yes, actually. Father used to keep a stable of horlas, and I often attended riding parties. This is... not completely different. _

_ I can relate, _ Pidge replied,  _ I got to ride a camel at a zoo once, and the only thing that animal had in common with a dragon was that it had four legs. Lizenne smells better than camels do, too. Oops! Company. _

A large group of soldiers had ventured into the hallway and scrambled to a halt at the sight of the hungry dragon. Unfortunately, that meant that Lizenne could see them, too.

**:PREY:** the dragon thought, and charged.

The soldiers, not being completely stupid, turned and ran screaming in terror. Also screaming were Pidge, who was hauling back hard on a pair of Lizenne's horns, trying to get her to stop, and Allura, who was hanging on for dear life. Lizenne eventually skidded to a halt with a frustrated screech, shaking her head and letting out a hungry bellow that rattled the walls. The soldiers kept running, and probably wouldn't stop until next week.

_ Bad dragon!  _ Pidge said,  _ Bad, bad dragon! We do  _ not _ eat sentient life forms, not even evil henchmen. They're all stringy and will give you the runs. Oh hey, smell that? _

Allura, who had been clinging to Pidge, wild-eyed and quivering, sniffed even as the dragon did, picking up a peculiar odor.  _ Ugh, what is that? _

_ Stew. _ Pidge replied.  _ Not very good stew, but good enough, and it's something that we aren't going to feel too guilty about later. How about it, sweetie? Scaring a cook is easier than peeling the armor off of a soldier. _

The dragon grunted and followed her nose.

 

Being a cook was often a hard and thankless job. Being a cook on the crew deck of a ship's galley, particularly a troop ship, was always that way. Being a cook on Haggar's own science deck, on Parzurak Spacehab, while the Emperor was flat on his back and his arrogant, entitled son was in residence was _awful._ Quite aside from the tight budget, the odd demands from Her Ladyship and her creepy Druids, the grumbling and surly technicians, staff, maintenance crew, and soldiers, you had the occasional escaped monster. There had been two today, so far. Three, if you counted Sendak, which Head Cook Arnok privately did. The second monster had been quite small and appeared to be a mostly hairless, sort of pinkish person in white and green clothing, who had suddenly multiplied hundreds of times and had thoroughly loused up every drone and Sentry on this deck. The third monster was currently scaring the pants off of his assistant cook, who was standing frozen in terror while holding an eight-gallon stockpot full of ghrembak stew. Not that he blamed the poor boy. This was a reasonably impressive beast, very well-served in the claws-and-spikes area, although it wasn't as big as some he'd seen, and it looked underfed.

“Put the pot down and back away slowly, Manzin,” he said soothingly, “it wants the stew. If it wanted you, you'd be dead already.”

Trembling, the boy did as he was told, bending down carefully to set the pot on the floor. On his way back up, the spiky creature licked his face with a large blue tongue and began slurping busily at the contents of the pot.

_Oh, god, that's good!_ Pidge said happily.

Allura made a gurgling sound of disgust.  _No, it isn't, it tastes like fermenting laundry that's been sitting around since last year's Mud Festival._

_Whatever. She's calming down. Feel that?_

Lizenne was indeed calming down, although just one pot of stew wasn't going to be enough. She polished every last drop out of that pot before she gave up on it, however, and turned to the watching cooks with a beseeching look in her eyes. _“Meep?”_ she asked. _“Meep?”_

“Boss, I think it wants seconds,” Manzin said.

“Then get her seconds. Nobody's turned up for lunch yet,” Arnok replied. “Nobody really likes my ghrembak stew, anyway.”

“ _Meep?”_ Lizenne twittered again.

The junior cook smiled. “Except her. Maybe if you added a little yurosk powder to the mix, you might get a better turnout.”

“On our budget? If I could afford yurosk powder, I wouldn't be making ghrembak stew.”

Manzin snorted in wry amusement. “True, that. Hold on a moment.”

He walked off and soon came back with another steaming pot, followed by a big basin of water. The dragon licked his face again before digging in.

“Aww,” he said, “there's a good girl. You know, she's kind of cute. Do we really have to give her back to the Druids?”

Arnok shrugged. “If they want her back, yeah. Unless, of course, we don't bother to catch her...”

Manzin snickered. “I get you. Ooh, wouldn't it be great if Sendak found her first? She's got a  _nice_ set of fangs there, so maybe she'd get him out of our hair for a while.”

“Nah. That witch would just replace whatever this big girl bites off. Here, let's try her on a couple of those sausages I made up yesterday.”

_I think I like these guys,_ Pidge said happily.  _I haven't had sausages in ages!_

_What are sausages?_ Allura asked.

_Ground meat and herbs and spices, packed into lengths of cleaned intestine and then cooked. It's great._

_Yuck,_ Allura replied.

Pidge sighed.  _Allura, just a little while after we moved into the Castle, Coran tried to feed us jellied bug parts. Double yuck. If Hunk hadn't taken over the cooking, we would probably have roasted and eaten Coran by now._

_Triple yuck._

_Yeah, he looks all tough and stringy. Oh, hey, those sausages taste nice!_

_Quadruple yuck._

It took several more sausages and half of the third pot of stew to satisfy Lizenne's hunger, and the huge meal was making her very sleepy. By this time, the two cooks had lost enough of their fear of her to stroke the fine scales of her face and rub her nose, which felt surprisingly pleasant. She snuffled at them in return, the furry mammal smell tickling her sinus cavities delightfully; she sneezed, giggled girlishly, and yawned.

**:Sleep:** the dragon thought.

“Aw, poor girl,” Manzin said, rubbing her beneath the chin. “Think we can let her take a nap behind the counter, boss? That corner over there, out of sight.”

Arnok nodded. “Yeah. I'll go run up some hask-fried kantlen in case anyone bothers to stop for lunch. That way, if Sergeant Talsk barges back here and starts going through my seasonings again, she can give him a nip on the ankle to teach him some manners. Come on, girl, just curl up over here.”

Lizenne was all too happy to do so, and was out like a light the moment she laid her head down.  _ Do you think we should let her sleep here? _ Allura asked nervously.  _ I really don't want to be recaptured. _

_ We'll give her an hour or so. We need to rest,  _ Pidge replied.  _ Changing shape really took it out of all of us, and we were worn out to begin with. Besides, these guys are pretty cool. She didn't smell anything wrong about them, and they did feed her. _

_Don't remind me. Those sausage things are going to haunt my nightmares, I just know it._

Pidge smirked.  _ I feel the same way about celenra gel. _

They contented themselves with watching the two cooks while their dragon dreamed of dancing in the tall grasses of home. Others approached as well, mostly surly support crews and stressed-out soldiers, all of them upset by Pidge's earlier antics. “The whole storeroom, cleared out!” one fellow complained over his plate of fried kantlen. “Nine hundred brand-new drones, just arrived two days ago, and they've been infected with some sort of bug. Some of the Sentries, too. They're not dangerous if you leave them alone, but if you try to get them to hold still for inspection? Well, you'd better hope that you don't try that with a bomb unit! Accounting and Supply are going to have a heart attack.”

“Yeah?” groused another. “You should see what's going on three levels down. Every damn Sentry down there is dancing.”

“ _Dancing?”_ the first asked incredulously.

_ Dancing?  _ Pidge echoed him.

“At least it looks sort of like dancing. They sort of prance rhythmically in place and wave their arms around. They're playing something in time to that that might be music. Sort of catchy, actually.” The Galra nibbled at his lunch, scowling. “Damn. Now it's stuck in my head. That's some kind of computer virus.”

Pidge started laughing. Allura gave her a suspicious look.  _ Just what did you do to those robots? _

_The Macarena! I'm really going to have to talk to Lizenne about that later, though. I didn't mean for my code to spread itself around like that, and I didn't tell them to start dancing, either. It was just a thought I had a while ago._

Other diners were starting to weigh in on the conversation now, each with horror stories of their own. “Think that's bad? The subverted drones are running holograms of some alien kid around the deck, hundreds of them, all over the place. Security's raging right now, and we can't stop them. Sendak says the kid—the real one, not the hologram—is a Paladin. Not too sure of that myself, but I suppose that they have to take off the armor sometime. Anyway, we've been searching all day and can't find him. Sendak's been crunching up any drone he comes across.”

“Count your blessings,” another chimed in. “Haggar herself got mobbed by a bunch of them, then tried to fry a bomb unit with magic. Twelfth Junction's blown all to hell, and it'll take days to repair.”

“Huh. And Haggar?”

“Scorched and furious. Don't go anywhere near her right now if you want to live.”

“Meh. She's been like that since the Prince showed up.”

Sendak himself showed up a little while later, obviously in a hurry. He paused just long enough to order the soldiers to put down their lunches and help with the search. “Not only is that Paladin still loose,” he growled at them, “but Haggar's newest Druid has managed to escape from its cell. She hasn't had the time to finalize the controls on it, which means that it will be looking for prey. I have a device that will stun it long enough for recapture; we can catch it now while it's still groggy, or we can do it later when it's in full control of its powers. Take your pick.”

Unsurprisingly, the soldiers got up and followed him out, and the support crews shuddered, finished their meals in nervous silence, and fled. Pidge and Allura watched them go in silence.  _ Allura?  _ Pidge asked,  _ What happens when someone has their Quintessence drained out of them? _

_ I'm not entirely sure, _ Allura admitted.  _ I have heard it said that they dissolve into dust and blow away on the wind. That might or might not be true, and I'm not sure that I'd want to see it demonstrated. _

They looked down at the sleeping dragon.  _ I think we just dodged a huge bullet,  _ Pidge observed.

_You may be right._

 

Lizenne woke up of her own accord some time later with a whiffle and a grunt that startled a yip out of the assistant cook. “Don't scare me like that, girl!” he said, patting her nose. “If we've got a rogue Druid floating around, things could get bad. The last time that happened, an entire squad was lost before they got it netted. Want another sausage? We've still got a few left.”

_ Yes!  _ Pidge said.

_ No!  _ Allura said.

“ _Meep?”_ Lizenne said, and got another sausage.

Ignoring Allura's disgusted comments completely, the dragon munched happily, then sniffed at the air. Something smelled bad, like rancid fur and evil. Lizenne hissed.  ** :Enemy: ** the dragon said, and a vision flickered across her mind of some sort of vile, filthy creature raiding a nest and devouring the egglings.  ** :Hunt: **

“What is it, girl?” Manzin said nervously, “Is that Druid nearby?”

“If it is, I've got a panic button and a saferoom in back,” Arnok said grimly. “Assuming that our friend here doesn't bite it in half.”

Lizenne paused long enough to give both of the cooks a gentle nuzzle of farewell, then set off at a brisk trot down the hall. She hated the source of that rancid stink and wanted it dead. **:Kill:**

_Sendak,_ Allura gasped.  _I think that's Sendak's scent. She's going to kill him if she finds him, and I don't think that we'll be able to stop her._

Pidge shook her head. _Allura, I don't think that we should try. He's a sociopath and is as nasty as they come. After everything he's done, to us and to other people, he deserves to catch Lizenne right in the face. Besides, it'll keep her busy until the guys get here. If we're lucky, maybe she'll get Haggar, too._

_That would help, yes._ Allura was quiet for a moment, and then something occurred to her. _Pidge, we may have a problem._

_Oh?_

_Just how, exactly, are the others going to find us? I assume that you tried to call for help, but Parzurak is_ enormous. _If they try to fight their way through all of it, they may well be captured or killed before we meet. Also, I would be very surprised if they were able to recognize us as we are right now._

_Ah._ Pidge said, suddenly realizing her mistake. _Um. You're right, that is going to be an issue._

_We can at least make it easier for them,_ Allura suggested, _whatever you did to those drones and Sentries is spreading, even though you didn't intend it to. Can you do it again, to the Station itself, and intend it to spread this time?_

Pidge was silent for a long moment as she thought about that. Then she laughed evilly. _Allura, I like the way you think! I'll need to get to one of the main control terminals, and those are probably under heavy guard right now._

_Heavy enough to argue with a dragon, I wonder?_ Allura asked coyly.

Pidge snickered. _Let's go find out._

Lizenne, however, had her own agenda and refused to be turned from the scent of her enemy. They eventually ended up outside a large, heavy, and very securely-locked door. It smelled heavily of Sendak, but not recently; this was probably the entrance to his personal quarters. Lizenne growled in frustration at the scent trails leading away in numerous directions, and then grunted at a sudden cramp in her gut.

_I knew that those sausages were a bad idea,_ Allura grumbled.

_Actually, that's probably the poisons we filtered out of her system. She'll need to get rid of them, but I don't think there's a little dragon's room anywhere nearby... wait._

Pidge grinned and leaned down to whisper something into Lizenne's ear. The dragon snorted, turned a smart about-face, and did what came naturally.

_Pidge!_ Allura exclaimed, caught between horror and amusement.  _That's disgusting!_

Pidge grinned back at her. _Traditionally, we should have put it in a paper bag and then set it on fire, but we don't have opposable thumbs right now. Not that we need to. Whoa, is that rank! Um. Should it be glowing like that?_

_No, and possibly not eating through the floorplates, either. Ugh. Just what did Haggar give her?_

_Best not to speculate. Come on, girl, let's go scare someone into letting us use the big computer._

Lizenne chuffed in satisfaction and trotted onward.

 

“And there it is, folks,” Keith said grimly.

Parzurak Spacehab loomed over the blue-and-pink globe of Tanrudak Gamma, surrounded by swarms of warships and fighters. Zaianne had brought them back into normal space at her usual cautious distance, and she frowned disapprovingly at the view. “Too risky,” she said. “Even with the full set of Lions, there are too many to take on alone in a head-on battle.”

Nobody argued with her. While she hadn't made any comments along the lines of the hugely tempting _I told you so,_ she had been right the last two times. She was certainly correct this time. Even Lance was prepared to admit that this situation was beyond even his considerable talent.

“It'll have to be stealth, then,” Lance said. “Man, Pidge was the best at that, too. Why did it have to be her that was kidnapped? I mean, I don't mind a good damsel-in-distress situation, but how come they get to grab all the cute girls in one go?”

“Not all of them,” Hunk said, “Zaianne still counts.”

Lance glared at him. “She's Keith's mom. No she doesn't.”

Keith flicked him a hard look. “Yes she does, and Lizenne's married. Don't be a creeper, Lance. Anything interesting in the local chatter, Coran?”

Coran was already searching the local airwaves for anything that might be helpful, and a dim mutter of layered conversations emanated from his console. “Not much. Parzurak's resupplying, apparently, and it all seems to be shipping manifests at the moment, although there are a few grumbles here and there. Something about an emergency restock of compromised security drones and Sentries. Makes sense. If Pidge is still running loose in there, they won't be interested in discussing that with planetside. Bad for one's image, that.”

“I dunno, all those busted drones?” Hunk said. “Sounds like Pidge to me. I just hope that she found the others, and--”

There was a scream of raw terror from Coran's console that made them all turn and stare, followed by a shattering bellow that sounded for all the world like a dragon's. This was echoed almost instantly by a pair of mechanical roars from the green and black Lions' hangars, a sound that resonated through the very substance of the Castle. Coran grabbed at the controls, bringing up that particular channel and allowing them to hear the sounds of an energetic fight.

“That... that sounded almost like Tilla,” Keith said, mystified. “Coran, could you call Modhri and the dragons in here? I think that they should hear this.”

Modhri was duly summoned, and he and his scaly escorts arrived just in time to hear something very large and angry smashing apart what sounded like a lot of expensive hardware. Tilla and Soluk, who had been terribly upset by their friend's disappearance, perked up immediately at the sound of the furious snarling. There was a pause, then an odd rumbling series of short, deep-toned chirps that Modhri recognized immediately. “There is a dragon over there,” he said firmly, “and one that is about to play a trick on someone.”

There was a snort, a crackle that spread into a great rush of static across all channels, and the blip of an incoming message from the console. When Coran pulled that message up, two words glowed on the screen:

**JOLLY ROGER**

Lance let out a triumphant whoop. On the screen, large sections of Parzurak's purple-lit levels were turning blue, and the swarms of drone fighters were beginning to act very strangely.

“The Station!” Hunk said joyfully, “She's hacked the whole station! Look at that!”

Keith was grinning broadly, watching the drone fighters attack the larger battleships, forcing them away from their patrols and leaving Parzurak wide open. All the fighter bays had opened as well, and every drone craft that the Spacehab possessed was pouring out to join the party. The comm crackled as the long, resonant draconic call to the hunt sang across all channels, and the Castle shuddered as two Lions launched themselves. The dragons echoed that call with enthusiasm, nearly deafening Modhri and the others. Keith didn't have to be told twice. “Let's go!”

Zaianne leaped down from the pilot's dais, bone spear in hand and Modhri at her heels, following the Paladins toward the hangars.

Coran sighed a little enviously, but didn't complain. He turned to face the dragons, who were watching the screens avidly as five Lions hurled themselves through space. “So,” he said, “know any good card games?”

 

There was no resistance. To give them credit, the battleships really tried, but the vast swarms of drone fighters refused to let them engage. The few shots that they did get off were wild or easily evaded, and as they passed a heavy cruiser, they saw its purple lights turn pale blue as well. It stopped struggling to get clear of the fighters and turned its guns on a nearby destroyer instead.

“She is on a _roll!”_ Lance shouted, throwing his Lion into a barrel roll just to illustrate his point.

Modhri, who was hitching a ride with him, had to grip the chair hard to keep his balance.

“Well, she did threaten to steal Zarkon's space navy once,” Keith said, “this is a pretty good start. Pay attention to the green and black Lions, guys. They've got a better idea of where the girls are than we do.”

The two Lions in question were heading straight toward one of the main fighter bays, and the other three were quick to come into formation with them. “Yeah, I've been thinking about that,” Hunk said thoughtfully, “we should be able to do that, too. This is one of those 'the pack is as one' exercises, isn't it?”

“Hey, you're right!” Lance said, leaning back in his seat. “I'm just gonna try--”

“Not when you're flying!” Hunk snapped. “Eyes front, Lance. I still get queasy about letting you drive sometimes, all right? And I'm pretty sure that the blue Lion doesn't want to hit a wall on the way in.”

“You're no fun,” Lance muttered, but did as he was told.

The cavernous bay was empty of ships, but not empty of personnel; ship technicians and soldiers fled from the Lions as they swept in through the doors. Even then, the two unmanned Lions didn't stop, but touched down and galloped determinedly onward, not stopping until they came to a dead end. There was one hatch in that blank wall, and it slid open for them even as the three Paladins and their companions disembarked.

“Handy,” Keith commented, peering through the hatch and seeing only the empty corridor of a service tunnel. “All right. First order of business, find our friends. Second, we get them out. If we can bust up a fair amount of this place while we're at it, that's a bonus. Okay, Lance, now that we're not flying, we can try to feel where they are.”

“Har, har,” Lance muttered acidly. “Let's give this a shot.”

They took a deep, calming breath and closed their eyes, seeking Pidge's familiar glinting green and Allura's very distinctive gleaming rose; the Princess had taken well to those lessons despite the hurried pace of her training, and they would have known her anywhere. It was astonishingly easy this time, and just as astonishingly clear, and it was obvious that the Lions were helping. The great mechanical cats _burned_ with radiance on this plane, cerulean, ruby, sapphire, topaz, and emerald, their mighty cores linked to the Paladin's hearts unbreakably. It was simplicity itself to focus on their missing team members, well above and well away to the right of them, and the hard bright yellow shine of someone else. Lizenne, although something about her and the others felt strange. Pidge and Allura felt the contact instantly, and rejoiced.

Their eyes snapped open, and Zaianne smiled to see the triumph in their faces. “You have them?”

“Are they all right?” Modhri asked.

“They're alive and loose, but something weird's happened to them,” Keith replied with a sympathetic glance in Modhri's direction. “They aren't hurt, I don't think, but they feel all crammed together somehow.”

“Lizenne's not talking,” Hunk said, “And she's in a real mood.”

Lance grinned irrepressibly. “Well, that counts as distress, and I'm up for saving some damsels. Anybody else?”

“Silly question,” Zaianne scolded gently. “Get moving, boy, and stop blocking the door.”

 

Lizenne was moving at a gallop now, unstoppable despite the efforts of both her passengers and the confused and frightened soldiers they had encountered along the way. She had discovered a fresh trail of Sendak's scent, and would not be turned aside. **:Enemy:** she insisted, **:Kill:**

Sentries and drones were everywhere, gleaming blue inside and out, battling Galra soldiers wherever they found them; only a few of them had managed to fire on Lizenne, and unsuccessfully. Dragonhide was proof against even blasters, and Lizenne had barely noticed their sting. Well, until now. One soldier had come out from behind a corner and fired at Lizenne's face, the bolts striking too close to her eyes for comfort. Irritated, she bellowed and charged, lashing out with one long forearm and slamming the hapless fool to the floor, sending his weapon spinning away.

**:Kill:** she declared, giving him an excellent view of her fangs and ignoring the protests of the two mammals on her back.

Abruptly, she stopped, lifting her head sharply away from her whimpering captive, sniffing at the air.

Allura and Pidge were suddenly aware of the presence of the Lions, and of their teammates. They were close, very close! Several levels down and well to the left of them, but they were here!

_ My heroes!  _ Allura laughed.

_ Mine, too, _ Pidge said happily,  _ I think Zaianne's with them, and Modhri. Hey, Lizenne, Modhri's here! Let's go find him. _

**:PACK:** Lizenne declared loudly, and even louder,  **_:MATE:_ **

_ Yes, dear, _ Allura coaxed sweetly,  _ go find Modhri, go on! Nothing else matters. _

Lizenne took off at a dead run.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, if you have questions or comments, drop us a line! We live off feedback and aren't above using puppy dog eyes to get it. Thank you for reading!


	8. Rescues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: Slightly shorter chapter today. Spanch has been taking care of a ton of stuff and I'm dead from a work week of HELL. Thank you to everyone who sent comments, we're glad you enjoy Pidge being badass. Now on with the story!

Chapter 8: Rescues

 

Parzurak was in chaos, inside as well as out. Every single drone, Sentry, and computer-controlled system was doing its best to subdue their former masters, and with some success. Every door that should have been open was now locked, trapping the household guard, and every door that should have been firmly locked was wide open. Hundreds, if not thousands of escaped prisoners were now stampeding toward the pod bays, and the Paladins were quite willing to let them go. Zaianne, however, did not let this early success go to her head. “It won't last,” she said. “Sooner or later, the computer techs will stop trying to fight the virus and will physically separate the main AI from the Station's systems. We won't have to worry about the drones, but the soldiers are going to be a problem.”

“We can handle it,” Lance said, bringing down a fair section of the ceiling on top of a group of soldiers with a few well-placed shots.

“Not if they go to manual control,” Modhri said grimly. “Best-case scenario is if they simply shut everything down but the basic utilities, leaving us with several thousand live troops to play with and no power to the lifts. There are emergency stairwells and independent lift systems, but they're too far from here to be of use.”

“And the worst case?” Hunk asked.

“They seal off the level, then turn off the gravity and evacuate the air from the halls,” Modhri replied darkly. “Yes, it's expensive in personnel, but the Spacehab itself is worth a lot more than a few soldiers.”

“We'd better find the girls and get out of here fast, then.” Keith stated. Zaianne was wearing her Blade armor and Modhri had sensibly made use of one of the _Chimera's_ EVA suits, but he'd been whooshed out into space a few times before and didn't really want to repeat the experience. None of the girls would have suits, either. “Bond-check, guys.”

They paused briefly to concentrate, feeling the Lions at their backs and their friends coming closer. Yes, closer, and moving fast, although there was a flare in that gold-green-rose signature that suggested a struggle. “That way,” Hunk said, pointing to the right fork of an intersection, and they all took off at a run.

 

Lizenne screeched in exasperated fury. Her pack was here, closer now, and all of these stupid purple furry things kept _getting_ _in the way._ She knew, somehow, that _this_ little enclosed space would take them down to where the pack was, but it was full of mammals and they wouldn't leave, no matter how loudly she roared at them. One of them touched something that she couldn't see, and the doors closed right in front of her nose. Screaming in rage, she rammed the doors with one shoulder, crumpling and tearing the metal as though it were tinfoil. She might have rammed it again, but the green voice on her shoulders offered a better suggestion. There was a... a _downslope_ nearby; the mental image came through to her as a steep decline made of handy boulders, easily navigated by an agile dragon. She whirled and headed where the green voice directed. She could trust the voices on her back, they had healed her, led her to plentiful food, and were leading her to her pack. She had lost the scent of her enemy, but that was no longer important. It was a foolish creature like all nest-raiders, and like all nest-raiders it would die between the teeth of the next watchful clutchmother. Or better yet, it would try its failing luck with the pack.

She growled angrily when she saw the downslope, however. It was steep, twisting, and the steps were too small for her paws. It was, however, empty of idiot mammals, so she started down with care.

_Are you sure that this was a good idea?_ Allura asked nervously as Lizenne slipped and had to grab the banister with her teeth to keep from falling down the stairs. The rail crumpled and tore beneath her weight, but it held long enough for her to regain her balance.

_It's going to be the only way in a few minutes,_ Pidge replied.  _The AI's mine now, but the guys up in the control center are trying to unplug it from everything. If they manage that, everything but the dummy backups and manual controls will go down with a crash. That's good, 'cause it'll cripple the entire station and probably everybody outside, but it's bad because I won't be able to control it anymore. I'd rather that we didn't get stuck in an elevator right now._

Lizenne slipped again and hit the wall hard enough to leave punctures in the panels. She growled, shook her head to clear it, and muttered a few draconic swearwords before attempting another flight. Allura giggled. _I'm going to have to remember some of those, although translating them into Altean is going to be difficult._

Pidge patted Lizenne on the shoulder. _I'm not even going to try. Mom threatened to wash Matt's mouth out with soap once, when he came home from his first day of high school with some new vocabulary that he'd picked up from the seniors. She'd have to load a fire truck with bleach to clean these up._

_Your mother is hundreds of lightyears away,_ Allura reasoned.

_Don't remind me, and she'd find out anyway. Mom has extreme profanity sensors._ Pidge sighed, and then looked up sharply when the lights went out.  _They've killed the AI._

Lizenne didn't like the sudden darkness on top of everything else, and bellowed a few more filthy words that caused someone far above to yelp and slam the door. Growling, Lizenne pressed on.

 

Galra, Keith had been informed, had evolved from a mostly nocturnal woodland predator, and as such had excellent night vision. Some of that had been passed on to him, but the other two Humans in the group were nearly blind when the lights went out. Zaianne and Modhri were on point now, their yellow eyes gleaming like lamps, Keith leading Hunk and Lance by letting them see through his eyes, a handy side effect of their Lion-boosted pack-bond. The going got slightly easier when the dim red emergency lights flickered on, but it didn't help much. The girls were very close now, having managed to find one of the emergency stairwells from the feel of it, although they were making very slow progress for some reason. Thankfully, they hadn't had too much trouble thus far; with communications shut down and their own commanders hopelessly confused, the soldiers were far more inclined to run than to fight. Three Paladins, a Blade of Marmora, and an expert marksman were more than most of them were willing to deal with.

They eventually found themselves in a large, open area, some sort of ceremonial space perhaps, when they ran into real trouble. Sendak hadn't been idle during the chaos, and had gathered a large number of his best troops there. “You!” Sendak snarled, then called to his men. “Get them!”

 

Lizenne was growling thunderously when they finally reached the correct landing, and shouldered the door out of the way with an angry heave. Her voice gained another level or two of menace once back out in the hall, for the scent of her enemy hung thick and hot in the air, along with the scents of a great many other mammals. And, faint and far away, the rich smell of her pack. The enemy was between her and her family, and she intended to remove that obstacle. **:KILL:** she roared, and her claws scored grooves in the decking as she flung herself into a full sprint. Her riders were urging her on, for once, and the few foolish mammals that got in her way either scattered before her or were crushed beneath her feet. She had no time for them now, and nothing short of death itself would stop her.

 

There were too many of them, Lance realized; he was back-to-back with Modhri and Hunk, doing his best to bring down as many soldiers as he could, but the dim light and the need to shield himself and Hunk weren't helping his aim any. Modhri was holding his own and Zaianne was mowing soldiers down like grass with Lizenne's bone spear—just what the heck did those bones come from, anyway—but there were too many even for her to deal with comfortably. Keith had it worse. He'd managed to cut his way through the press to reach Sendak himself, but he had his hands full with that guy and no mistake. Keith was shaping up to be a great swordsman, but Sendak's battle-arm was a both a grappling-hook and a bludgeon, and even Shiro hadn't had much luck with it. Pidge was the one who'd really defeated the ferocious Galra last time, and she wasn't here. Sendak was also at least twice Keith's mass, had had a very great deal of combat experience, and was meaner than a stomped-on wolverine. The floor shook from the impacts of Sendak's battle-hand against it as he struck again and again, refusing to allow Keith to close with him and forcing him back toward the soldiers. Sooner or later, someone was going to shoot Keith in the back and save Sendak a lot of trouble.

“Zaianne!” he called hoarsely, “help Keith! We can't get through to him!”

She didn't reply beyond a nod, saving her breath for making the bone spear spin and stab faster. The soldiers had learned to respect that weapon, but there were limits to even her skill, and while she was able to push forward, she could not do so quickly enough. To her horror, she saw her son slammed to the floor under that big battle-hand, his bayard spinning away. Sendak laughed cruelly and lifted the stunned Paladin up, clenched hard in the thick fingers, and began to slowly crush him. Keith screamed in pain.

Unable to break through, Zaianne cried out her son's name.

So did someone else, although not in a translatable language. Something huge and spiky blasted out of a side door, knocking soldiers aside like tenpins without noticeably slowing down. Sendak barely had time to look around before being smashed off of his feet, his mechanical shoulder torn to pieces by a swipe from a clawed paw. The force of that blow knocked him against the far wall with a bone-crushing impact, although the great beast that had delivered it did not follow. It was too busy prying Keith out of the severed battle-arm, so the task fell to Zaianne, who had the right to do so. Knocking the distracted soldiers aside, she leaped forward to where Sendak lay groaning, ocular and shoulder spitting sparks. He looked up at her in terror, but did not otherwise move.  _Spine broken,_ she thought. Killing him would, arguably, be a mercy.  _“Ghren-khesh'vaaht,”_ she informed the broken soldier, raising the spear, “I and my sister see you dead at our feet.”

She drove the spear home. It was remarkable how easily the tambok-fang spearhead penetrated Galran body armor, and the man who had nearly killed her son died instantly.

This did not go unnoticed by the monster standing protectively over Keith, who barked a peculiar crackling sound that hovered golden on the air for a moment; Sendak's body erupted into flames of such intensity that it forced Zaianne to pull the spear free and scramble away, lest she burst into flames as well. The remaining soldiers broke and fled; fighting a dragon in the dark, much less a fire-breathing one, was more than they could bear.

 

Not that the dragon was up to much more excitement. Lizenne was nearing exhaustion again, and she sagged down onto her haunches, panting. The fire had been a self-indulgence that her already overstrained body could ill afford to make. She leaned down and nuzzled at Keith, who groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Hi,” he said breathlessly, “thanks for the save. Where'd you come from?”

“Keith,” Hunk panted, “are you okay?”

Keith hauled himself to his feet, steadying himself against the dragon's shoulder and clutching at his sword arm. “Could be better. Arm's broken. Bayard's around here somewhere.”

“I've got it,” Lance said, waving a crescent-shaped object in one hand. “But seriously, it's broken? We still need to find Pidge and the others!”

“No we don't,” Hunk said. “I just did a bond-check. They're right here. They're the dragon. All three of them. How'd they do that?”

Modhri took off his helmet and stared. “Lizenne?”

The dragon's head snapped up and she heaved herself to her feet, nearly knocking him over in her rush to lick his ears. Modhri laughed breathlessly, clinging to her broad spiny head and laying his own on her brow. “You've made a mess of things this time, my Lady,” he said shakily, “my dearest, most arrogant and prideful love. Tilla and Soluk are not going to be pleased with you.”

The dragon made a faint, plaintive little squeak that made the others laugh. “All right, mission accomplished,” Lance said, holstering Keith's bayard for him. “Now let's get out of here before they get this place running again. Zaianne?”

Sendak's corpse had burned out, leaving nothing more than a heap of ash and a few pieces of slagged metal. Zaianne was kneeling by the pile, fiddling with a small canister of some sort. “Just a moment,” she said, slipping the bottle into a pouch and picking up the spear. “There. You said that your arm was broken, Khaeth? Let me see.”

“Still wearing armor, Mom,” Keith grunted. “Save it for when we're back on the Castle. It'll hold until then.”

She had to concede the necessity, and they made their way back to the Lions with what speed they could muster. Thankfully, nobody disputed their passage, and while Keith was sweating and pale when they arrived, they got there intact. The yellow, red, and blue Lions bowed immediately to allow their Paladins into their cockpits, but the black and green ones didn't seem to know what to do when the dragon marched forward and sat down before both of them. Great metal heads canted at odd angles like those of puzzled cats, and there was a distinctly perplexed look in their eyes. The dragon gave a peremptory bark, a sort of “make up your minds” kind of sound that made Modhri laugh. He stepped up and knocked on the black Lion's paw. “Come on, old fellow, open up. I know you don't like Lizenne much, but you're the only one big enough to take them home. Even so, it's going to be a tight fit. Can you retract that seat?”

The black lion reluctantly lowered itself, opening its jaws to reveal a chairless cockpit. The dragon entered with vast dignity and curled up inside, just barely able to fit.

“Good Lion,” Modhri said. “Green Lion, will you take me and Zaianne here? It has been a difficult day.”

The green Lion granted this request with alacrity, and before long they were back out in the safety of open space.

 

Coran considered his next move with care, for any wrong move now could be his last. His position was weak, his resources nearly spent, and his adversaries were mighty. They viewed him silently, gazing at him out of cold blue eyes, and the pressure of their attention was a nearly palpable force. He'd tried everything—the long stare, muttering nonsense under his breath, fiddling with his mustache, frequent trips to the restroom, but nothing worked to shake their composure. They might as well have been carved from blocks of sandstone, and it occurred to him that trying to distract a pair of large, intelligent predators with displacement activity might have been a bad idea. No help for it, then. He laid out his cards on the floor and said, “Planets Conjoined.”

Soluk grunted and nudged over the stand that had held his own cards, revealing the neat spread to be a slightly less exalted Meteor Storm. Coran heaved a sigh of relief. “Whew! I thought you had me there, old lizard, but it seems the family luck has prevailed. Just pass those cookies over here--”

Tilla let out a pointed chirp and nudged over her own hand. Both Coran and Soluk stared in horror at a genuine Warrior Queen's Flagship, a hand that the Altean hadn't seen since his own grandfather had won first prize at the Worldwide Dix-Par Championship over ten thousand years ago. Tilla chirped happily and swept all of the cookies over to her pile, which was enormous.

“You sly minx, you,” Coran accused. “You just wait until Hunk makes another batch of those...”

“ _Hey, Coran, you still awake over there?”_ Keith's voice came tinnily through the comm, sounding oddly strained.

Coran leaped up, cards scattering unheeded over the floor. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, although rather lacking in cookies. Tilla's a devil at Dix-Par. How'd it go?”

“ _Things got intense in spots, but we survived it. Warm up a medical pod, will you? Sendak broke my arm. Oh, and tell Tilla and Soluk that we've got a puzzle for them to work out for us.”_

“Really? What sort of puzzle?”

“ _Lizenne, Allura, and Pidge turned into a dragon somehow. All three. One dragon. Don't ask me how they did it, 'cause even I know that that's scientifically impossible. I don't think that they can separate on their own, since they would've done it by now if they could've.”_

Soluk let out a  _yurk_ of surprise, making Keith laugh breathlessly.  _“Hey, Soluk. Tell Tilla to save us some cookies, okay? I think we've earned them.”_

 

Tilla and Soluk were indeed less than pleased, sniffing the smaller, green-and-rose striped dragon all over and muttering in a crackling undertone all the while. Now that they were in a decent light, the terrifying monster that had helped to put an end to Sendak and routed his men was revealed to be scraped, scorched, bruised, exhausted, and half-starved. Tilla turned to Modhri and uttered as ear-boggling a collection of chirps, hisses, and clicks as he and the others had ever heard, then gave the patient a nudge in the direction of the lift.

“What was that?” Keith asked around a mouthful of cookie; he had refused to go to the med bay until he was sure that the girls would be all right, and Tilla had quite forgotten her winnings.

Modhri smiled. “I'm to take Hunk down to the kitchen and churn out a very large amount of food. Lizenne, Pidge, and Allura have all spent far more of themselves than was wise, and they are going to be famished. We may have to hand-feed them. Keith, you can't help with that, so once you've seen them returned to normal, get yourself into that medipod.” He reached into a pouch and tossed Coran a small object. “My key to the _Chimera._ Zaianne, Coran, will you please move the ships to where we won't be disturbed? Coran, all you'll have to do is sit in the pilot's seat and tell the AI to follow the Castle. Lance, I'll need you to help with the girls.”

“My pleasure!” Lance said eagerly.

“Not if she bites you,” Modhri warned him. “Remember how you felt just after that trip through the Mindscape? This was an actual transformation in this reality. They're not even going to be able to think. Do this wrong, and you may lose a finger or two.”

Lance gulped and clutched both hands to his chest. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious. Come on,” he waved Hunk and Lance toward the kitchen. “They'll be very sorry later and the medipods should be able to replace them, but it's not a lesson that you'll forget in a hurry.”

“Tanrook buns,” Hunk declared, “and Allura's favorite celenra gel. Put enough of that in front of them and they won't even know that we're there.”

“Good plan.” Lance said, looking down anxiously at his hands.

 

A short time later they were all gathered on the training deck, which had been layered with cushions and blankets. The stripy dragon had been settled down in the middle of that pile with Tilla and Soluk sitting on either side of her. Outside the room, Modhri and his helpers waited with huge plates and bowls full of food, awaiting their turn. “Remember, don't let them eat too fast or they'll either choke or be sick. Make them take a drink after every few mouthfuls. They'll fight you at first, but once the edge is off of that appetite, they'll stop struggling. I'll handle Lizenne. Hunk, you've got Allura, and Lance will hold Pidge down.”

“How come Hunk gets the Princess?” Lance complained; he hadn't yet given up on winning the heart of the beauteous Allura, even though he knew it annoyed her.

“Because Hunk's bigger and stronger than you are,” Modhri replied simply. “Allura's an Altean and is perfectly capable of snapping your neck. Believe me, you're going to have your hands full enough with Pidge.”

“Should we go and put our armor back on?” Hunk asked.

“The gauntlets, maybe,” Modhri admitted. “Ah, they're starting.”

The dragons did not chant as Lizenne had; it was more like singing, for it sounded at first like a deep, resonant hum and gained over- and undertones of surprising complexity. Their throats vibrated visibly, the scales rattling together like maracas, and sounds almost like words began to surface in that peculiar mix of tones. Keith, too fascinated with what was going on to notice the ache in his arm at the moment, realized that Lizenne's cantrips were merely attempts to reshape those sounds into something that she could pronounce. Either way, it was effective. The smaller dragon's outline was starting to blur, the three colors separating out and reshaping themselves into their separate persons. There was a pop and and a hiss of dissolving gold, and Lizenne flopped bonelessly onto the blankets. The green sublimated with a crackle and Pidge flomped into a heap of pillows. An almost musical note heralded the manifestation of Allura, who simply collapsed on top of the other two, gasping for breath. Tilla and Soluk concluded their spell and nodded to Modhri, who began ushering in the much-needed meal. A trio of feral sounds from the pile of bedding told them exactly how much the fragrant cargo was needed.

Modhri had, as usual, been quite correct in his reasoning. The three females were weak from hunger, but singularly determined to get as much food into their bellies as quickly as they could, and they all found themselves hard-pressed to keep the girls from hurting themselves. It pained Lance to see how much weight Pidge had lost, and how her hands shook uncontrollably; she hadn't had much in the way of reserves to start with, and now her clothing was too loose and her bones were visible beneath her skin. Allura wasn't much better, for all that she'd had more mass to start with, and neither was Lizenne. Eventually, the girls became less frantic in their efforts, and then relaxed enough to let themselves start thinking rationally again.

Allura let out a most unladylike belch and blinked up at Hunk, who still had a half-bowl of celenra gel in one hand. She grabbed that from him, stared at hands that no longer had scales, shrugged and polished off the rest of the bowl. “By the Ancients,” she muttered blurrily, “proper food at last, although even those sausages would have tasted good to me.”

Pidge chortled weakly around a mouthful of tanrook bun. “I would have destroyed Tokyo for one of those sausages just now.”

“Sausages?” Hunk asked sharply. “Where did you get sausages? I'd kick apart Osaka if it got me a sausage.”

Pidge snorted and finished off her bun. “There was a kitchen on the science level, and a couple of Galra cooks. They'd made some yesterday. They were pretty good.”

“ _No.”_ Allura said, waving the empty bowl at Pidge. “Absolutely not. This is my Castle, and I am the Princess around here, and I absolutely forbid that sausages defile the premises.”

Pidge ignored her. “You can ask Lizenne what goes into them. Lizenne, are you okay?”

Lizenne uttered a low groan. “Gah. What happened?”

“I'm not sure, beloved, but it's over now.” Modhri murmured, holding her close.

Her hand lifted to caress his ear lovingly, and he leaned his head into her hand with a shuddering sigh of relief. “So I see. Alive, if not entirely unscathed, and well away by now, I hope. Ye gods, but I've been having some odd dreams.”

Pidge stared owlishly at her, her eyes too large in a face that had grown thin. “You don't remember what happened?”

“You put me well and truly under, I remember that _._ Give it a little time and the rest should surface. I seem to remember stew, for some reason. And sausages.”

Allura gurgled in disgust. “Very bad stew and sausages.”

Lizenne chuckled wearily. “Hunk, dear boy, do you think that you could, with all of your culinary genius, develop a version that Allura might approve of? No rush, of course. If I eat any more than I have already, I'll pop. What I want right now, what I truly want to do...”

She twisted around in Modhri's grasp so that she could wrap her own arms around him, kissed him under his jaw, and fell asleep. Pidge gave that some due consideration. “That looks like fun,” she said, wriggled out of Lance's grip, and crawled over to latch onto Modhri's arm.

Allura had the same idea, and Modhri found himself rendered quite immobile. “Oh, dear,” Modhri murmured, “what do I do now?”

“We love you, Uncle Modhri,” Pidge whispered and sacked out cold.

Lance sighed, feeling a bit hard-used. “Well, at least I've still got all my fingers. How come you get all the credit, pal?”

Modhri shrugged as well as he could with two sleeping girls clinging to his arms. “I'm cute and fuzzy, apparently. At least you can move. Oh, well. I could use a nap, and I find that I dislike sleeping alone these days.”

Hunk laughed. “Yeah. We'll take care of the cleanup. In the meantime, let's just pile up some of these pillows for you. Keith, fun's over, now get your butt down to the infirmary.”

“Gotcha,” Keith said, and slipped out of the room.

Lance helped Hunk pile enough pillows around Modhri so that he wouldn't wake up with a bad back, then gathered up empty bowls and platters. “You know,” he said to Hunk while they were taking the stack back to the kitchen, “I used to watch _Ranger Dash: Space Hero_ all the time when I was a kid. I saw all the movies, even read some of the fanfiction.”

Hunk cast him a sly glance. “Write any?”

“I won't dignify that with an answer.” Lance replied loftily. “He was always sailing off into the stars, doing hero stuff, discovering ancient mysteries and battling the forces of evil. Later on, I also noticed that he usually had a beautiful alien princess hanging onto him. That kind of became important when I turned thirteen, y'know?”

“We noticed,” Hunk said with a chuckle.

“Yeah. I wanted that. That's why I let Dad pressure me into going to Galaxy Garrison instead of following my sister's lead and going into men's fashion instead.” Lance fingered his shirt proudly. “Grandma made sure that I could make my own clothing if I had to, and I'm pretty good at it.”

“So, that's where you got those blue Lion slippers,” Hunk grinned. “Make me a yellow pair?”

“What's it worth to you?” Lance grinned at him. “Nah, never mind, just give me your shoe size sometime. But it's weird. I'd pretty much given up on the whole space hero thing and settled for becoming a really good pilot instead. And then all this happened, and I am a space hero now. Fighting evil and everything, making discoveries and meeting some really cool people along the way. There have even been some beautiful alien princesses.”

“And all of them treat you the same way the cheerleaders treated you in high school,” Hunk said. “I get it.”

“Like I was a pile of dirty socks,” Lance said, “or a houseplant. It kinda gets to you after a while, doesn't it?”

Hunk shrugged. “Not really. I'm not exactly movie star material myself. Maybe if I'd let Coach Hector coax me into joining the football team things might have been different, but Mom told me that if I ruined my knees, I'd never be able to open that restaurant that I'd been dreaming about. Working in a kitchen means a lot of long hours spent standing, you know. And what about engineering? If I'd mashed up my knees and hands, I couldn't play with the big-kid toys, and they haven't designed a helmet yet that'll keep a football player from getting concussions every time he gets tackled. No way. I like my brain too much to turn it into jock-jelly. Besides, when exactly are we going to have time for romance? When we're not fighting evil, we're training up to fight evil, and the rest of the time we're too tired to care. There's a heck of a lot of evil out there, and there's just us and a few friends around to fight it.”

Lance scowled and helped Hunk maneuver the dishes into the kitchen without spilling any of them onto the floor. “Yeah, but is a little hero-worship too much to ask for? A guy's gotta keep his self-esteem up somehow. Sorry. I'm just a little jealous of Modhri right now.”

“Like Lizenne's going to share him with anybody,” Hunk snickered. “Nah. He's everybody's uncle, Lance, and we all really need him. I mean, we've all been separated from our families in one way or another—Keith's the one I'm jealous of 'cause he actually found his mom—but Allura lost her dad twice, and Pidge's was kidnapped, and then we had to send him and Matt home. I know that I feel better for having Modhri around.”

Lance sighed. “Yeah, me too. I'd still like to have a little romance, though. The closest I've gotten so far were those mermaids, and that's... that's got a few issues to work out.”

Hunk snorted. “So? The one alien girlfriend I've almost got is made mostly out of rocks. Shay's a great girl, but we're not compatible, and her brother would probably freak. Maybe later, Lance. After we've made some headway with the Empire.”

“Maybe,” Lance agreed, but couldn't resist pouting a little as he slid the platters into the cleanser. “Why can't life be more like the vids?”

“What, and have it get interrupted by commercial breaks every ten minutes?” Hunk grinned at him. “I don't know about you, but I'd rather not just be getting to a good part and have to pause for an ad for hemorrhoid cream.”

Lance burst out laughing and felt better for it. “You're right. Thanks, Hunk.”

“Any time.”

 


	9. History is Better With Soap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: Aangflatz! Ragglefrazz! GEH! *thump*  
> Spanch: Sorry, everybody, it's been a bit chaotic around here. Kokochan's operating on about 45 minutes of sleep right now and is in a mood to bite the entire cosmos on the hapleks. I'm not much better. Sorry if it's a bit late, but here it is!

Chapter 9: History Is Better With Soap

 

The girls followed the same recovery cycle that had occurred before: wake up, gobble down a huge meal, sleep like rocks for several hours, repeat. By the time that they recovered enough to stay awake for longer than fifteen minutes, the Castle and the _Chimera Rising_ had been moved successfully to an orbit around a quiet little white dwarf a hundred lightyears from anything interesting, and Keith had come out of the medipod with his bones intact. Sendak had broken more than just his arm, as it turned out; his shoulder and collarbone had taken damage as well. Zaianne took a moment from her piloting duties to formally return the bone spear and her custodianship of Modrhi to Lizenne, who accepted them with equally formal grace, along with a small bottle of ashes.

“What is that?” Allura asked, peering curiously at the bottle.

“Sendak,” Zaianne replied with grim satisfaction. “What was left of his skull, anyway.”

“Ugh.” Allura said.

Lizenne handed the bottle to Modhri. “It's traditional. This is the most desirable conclusion to a declaration of _kheshveg,_ Allura. See, we are alive and well, our enemy is thoroughly defeated, and in this bottle is proof that he shall never threaten us or our kin again. I thank you for this rich gift, my sister, and I shall give it a place of honor in our home... with room on the shelf for two more such bottles. I hope that you kept a little for yourself.”

“Bleah,” grunted Pidge.

Zaianne cast her an amused glance, but gestured a negative. “Sendak was never my personal worry. You may keep him. I will have a portion of the other two, if and when they become available.”

“Granted, and gladly,” Lizenne sighed and leaned back against Modhri, who wrapped his arm lovingly around her waist. “I shall take great pleasure in Haggar's destruction. What she did to me in that lab... what she has done to countless others, that cannot be borne. Hmm. Allura, do your people have a religion where the evil are punished?”

“Several,” Allura said, yawning. “Which one would you like?”

Lizenne chuckled. “It doesn't matter. There is going to be a screaming argument between the Galran pantheon and your own deities over her wretched little soul, assuming that she still has one. It's not important.”

“What did she do to you?” Zaianne asked curiously. “Ulaz was able to find out a great deal about the cybernetics she used, but never anything about the aetherics.”

Lizenne wrinkled her nose in disgust. “It's not so pleasant a tale that I'm willing to tell it twice. You might as well call in the rest of the crew; we all need to catch up on what has been going on lately.”

It took only a few minutes to assemble everyone, including the dragons, who insisted on sniffing the girls all over very thoroughly before settling down. This resulted in the usual sneeze and giggle, and Lizenne patted Soluk's nose. “Pidge reamed me out thoroughly, love,” she told him. “You might want to discuss the method with her later. It was quite effective, and I never felt a thing.”

Soluk grunted, gave Pidge a long, enigmatic look, and then settled down to listen. The boys told their side of it first, it being less dramatic on their end, although Allura and Pidge stared wide-eyed at the terrible responsibility that Modhri had forced upon Zaianne. Modhri only smiled. “It's the only way that I can bully a woman into doing what I want her to do,” he said mildly, “I appealed to her personal honor. She could have refused me, save for her own integrity and some tens of thousands of years of tradition getting in the way of that.”

“You play dirty,” Zaianne said coolly.

“I play to win.” Modhri replied with a shrug. “A tactic that has yet to fail me.”

Then it was the ladies' turn, and their descriptions of their treatment at the hands of the enemy made them alternately shudder and boil, and Allura's description of Prince Lotor frankly offended Keith. “Seriously? He looks like me?”

“A little. He's older than you are, and much taller, but the face is much the same. Zaianne, was your family looking for a little Imperial favor, perhaps?”

“It's possible. My Lineage is a large and powerful one, if not the highest in rank, and our Matriarch would have happily killed every rival she had if it would have gotten one of her girls into Zarkon's bed. I wouldn't know. I have had no contact with her for over thirty years, and want none.” Zaianne's expression was stony. “I disliked being treated like property.”

“Hear, hear,” Lizenne agreed, “I'll see what I can dig up on his ancestry later.”

“Don't bother, I'm sure that none of us would like the answer,” Allura said grumpily. As bad as he was, Haggar was worse.”

“Haggar?” Coran yelped, “What did that creature want with you?”

“Haggar wanted to find out just why I hadn't died when she blasted me earlier.” Allura rubbed at her arms. “I'm apparently something called a 'perfect mirror', which is very, very rare. We wound up wrecking the lab testing that out.”

Coran gasped. “Impossible! Perfect Mirrors are legends—myths, almost! There haven't been more than seven of them in all of history, eight, if you count the fifth one, but he was later proved to be an impostor. It was an act he put on to get free drinks at taverns. There's always been a bit of mageblood in your family, Allura, but never anything on that scale!”

“What's a Perfect Mirror?” Modhri asked, giving Allura a quizzical look.

“A Perfect Mirror is a person who is said to be capable of absorbing any amount of magic, no matter how much or how little, and redirecting it elsewhere without damage to his or her person. A small fraction of that power is siphoned off to do the actual redirecting with, which causes the Mirror to glow for a short time afterward.” Coran shook his head and pulled at his mustache. “They have little power of their own, but in concert with a greater mage they could be incredibly effective. The best of them could actually amplify what they were given. Your colleagues, Allura, however few they were, specialized in the destruction of evil wizards. Some said that the Gods themselves chose when and who to bestow that trait upon.”

“Handy, that. I know that it helped fuel our transformation,” Lizenne murmured.

“Yeah, about that,” Hunk said, “why'd you all cram into the same dragon? Wouldn't three little ones have been better?”

Lizenne rolled her eyes heavenward and described, rather to her audience's horror, exactly what went into creating a new Druid, and why she'd had no choice but to meld the three of them together into one body, and why they'd had to take the extreme measures they did. “None of us alone had the strength to survive it. All of us together had the skill and talent to make it work. Even so, the girls had their work cut out for them controlling me as well as they did. Yes, it was a desperate, dangerous thing to attempt, but we managed in the end. Frankly, we wouldn't have succeeded even so without Pidge's other little tricks.”

Pidge then was required to explain her part in the adventure, which made her teammates very proud of her. “A lot of it was unintentional,” she admitted, scratching self-consciously at the back of her neck. “I mean, I hadn't meant for all those Sentries to do the Macarena like that, it was just a thought that I'd had a while ago. I'm going to need a lot more practice.”

“You'll get it,” Keith promised. “So, after that you sort of went on a rampage, right? Only Hunk mentioned something about Galra sausages earlier, and I'm not sure where those fit in.”

Pidge giggled at the gross face that Allura made. “We had to stop for lunch after we got the poisons cleaned out of Lizenne's system, and found the science level's kitchen. The cooks were pretty cool about it after she made it clear that all she wanted was the stew. They gave us some sausages, too, and let her nap behind the counter until Sendak's scent woke her up. She really hated him.”

“Indeed I did, although your little suggestion of what I should do outside of his door was vulgar, young lady,” Lizenne said sternly.

Lance gave Pidge's broad, unrepentant grin a suspicious look. “What did she do?”

Lizenne told him.

The room filled with sounds of horrified amusement and cries of disgust. Lizenne laughed. “A lovely insult, really, and it's a shame that he never got to see it. After that, folks, it was merely a matter of finding you. We felt you the moment you established the pack-bond, boys, and it gave us all great joy to know that you were coming. You know the rest, having been there.”

“That's so,” Modhri said, resting his hands on Allura's and Pidge's shoulders. “However, I must ask you two a question. Why did neither of you have your bayards with you? If you had, you would have been able to summon the Lions, and none of this rigamarole would have happened. At the very least, you could have destroyed Sendak's device before he triggered it.”

The two girls looked up at him in puzzlement. “We were helping with the plumbing and roof repair,” Pidge said, “I didn't think I'd need it.”

“My reasoning was much the same,” Allura said, “and I think that I simply forgot it.”

Modhri gave them a disapproving look and shifted his grip, knocking their heads gently together. “You will not do that again,” he scolded in a low voice. “Never forget that you are always in danger, so long as Zarkon and his chief minions still hold power. You will not go unarmed again for even a second, do you hear me? I nearly lost my family again for such carelessness.”

The girls winced and said in small voices, “Sorry, Uncle Modhri.”

“Prove it by using your good sense in the future,” he said, and then wrapped his long arms around all three of them, holding them close in a tight grip. “You frightened me very badly, and all I can do is thank whatever fortune preserved you from permanent harm, and if I have to brand it into your minds to remind you to take better care of my nerves, then I will do so. Now, go and take a bath, all of you. You'll feel far better when clean.”

He stood, dipped a bow to Zaianne, and left the room. Lizenne pulled up the collar of her too-loose shirt and sniffed underneath it. “Oof. He's right. I smell like a swamp orbushk.”

Pidge was suddenly very aware that she had been wearing the same clothes for three days running. Three hard, strenuous days, and having been a dragon for some of it hadn't helped. She felt sticky where she didn't feel crusty, and she itched. “Uncle Modhri's always right. I smell like a locker room in a bad gym. Allura?”

“I'm not even going to mention what my skin feels like,” Allura sighed, “and I expect that I'm a bit overripe, too.”

Lizenne chuckled. “It's not all that bad. You carry a distinct whiff of saru mushrooms. Sweet, earthy, but ultimately fungal. Beloved by gourmets the universe over, if it makes you feel any better.”

Allura snorted. “Not appreciably. I want a hot soak, and I believe the Castle has a hot tub.”

“Sold!” Pidge said. “Where?”

“That'd be the Queen Emaltris Suite,” Coran offered, getting to his feet. “Lovely woman, had a passion for hot springs and jovial company. My grandfather never missed her pool parties, and neither did anyone else. Central tower, fifteenth level, seventh on the right from the north lift.”

Allura gave him a suspicious look. “Did you attend any of those parties?”

Coran sighed regretfully. “No, alas. By the time I was old enough to attend, she'd already passed on. Emaltris was your great-grandmother. Jolly to the end, that grand old girl, and everyone loved her dearly.”

Allura humphed and wobbled to her feet, swaying slightly. Pidge wasn't any better, and even Lizenne's knees trembled under her weight. “Damn,” she muttered, scowling at her reduced frame. “We really did overdo it, didn't we? I'm not sure that we can make it that far.”

“Stay right there,” Lance said, hopping up. “I've got an idea. Come on, guys, follow me.”

They followed him out and returned a few minutes later with a large hover-pallet from the nearest storeroom. “Hop on,” Lance grinned, getting a good grip on the handle. “We'll give you a push in the right direction.”

“Most gentlemanly of you,” Allura said, favoring him with a smile, which made him flush happily, and it wasn't long before the three girls were being pushed down the halls at a very respectable speed.

They found the suite easily, although Lance's offer to help wash their backs was declined. “They're your sisters, boy,” Lizenne said sternly, although not without humor, “and I've already got a fine man. Have patience! We'll make sure that the tub's clean and ready for you after we're done, and you lads can have a turn. If you like, you can invite Zaianne to join you. Namturans prefer bathing in mixed company.”

She then slid the door shut in their painfully red faces, and locked it.

“You're mean,” Pidge giggled. “Where we come from, baths are mostly a private thing, and taking a bath with your friend's mother is weird.”

“I know. Precocious little cub, isn't he?” Lizenne chuckled. “One of my elder cousins was like that, at least until the mate of one of his light 'o' loves caught up with him. Now, let's have a look at that tub.”

The hot tub was a poem in creamy orange marble, set deep into the floor with a series of shallow ledges around the walls so that people of all sizes would be able to sit and soak to their heart's content. It was also as big as a pond and had its own waterfall, an entire bank of what seemed to be bath oils and salts, a huge selection of luxury soaps, perfumes, lotions, hair-care products, a temperature control that allowed the bather to fine-tune the pool to the perfect level of heat, and what appeared to be its own drinks bar.

“Wow,” Pidge said reverently. “Fire that thing up!”

A few touches on the controls soon had the tub filling up with steaming water, and the ladies lost no time in peeling out of their filthy clothing. Literally, in Allura's case.

“Um,” Pidge said dubiously, “I don't think that trousers are supposed to stand up all by themselves.”

Allura grimaced at her clothing. “Alteans don't sweat like Humans do,” she admitted, “we have mucous glands to keep the skin properly moist. When we're under stress or dehydrated, we can get very sticky. I may have to burn this outfit.”

“I can't,” Pidge held up her rank-smelling shirt. “These are all the clothes I've got. Everything in the Castle's storerooms is either too big or too obviously little-kid wear.”

Allura gave her a look of surprise. “The Castle does have an autotailor, you know. Quite a good one. Goodness, Pidge, you're all bones.”

Pidge looked down at herself in dismay, and then over at her companions. “So much for Hunk's efforts to feed me up. Wow. You're looking a little bony yourself, and... huh. We really are different in some ways, aren't we?”

Lizenne glanced down at herself, then at the others, did some simple arithmetic, and smiled. “We can have as many as ten cubs per birthing, Pidge. I won't actually fill out until I'm pregnant. You're as flat as a board right now, and Allura's lost too much weight as well. Into the water now, and I apologize in advance if it makes me smell odd.”

They slid into the warm water with groans of pleasure and just sat there for several minutes, letting their muscles unknot. After a time, Allura sniffed at the air and said, “Oh, dear.”

“Sorry,” Lizenne murmured. “I did warn you.”

Pidge giggled. “You smell like the time Matt had to wash Gunther—his dog—with Mom's shampoo 'cause we were out of the pet stuff. She was a little grumpy about that, but he smelled nice for days.”

“It's actually rather pleasant,” Allura said thoughtfully. “A little musky, perhaps, but with an overtone of... ushti, I think, and perhaps jorah.”

“Nutmeg,” Pidge said firmly, “anise, and maybe some saffron. And a little like jasmine tea. I wish my hair smelled like that. I smell like an ape.”

“According to your scientists, you are a sort of ape,” Lizenne flashed a quick grin at her. “It's all right, my evolutionary ancestors were somewhere between the equivalent of your foxes and jackals, with perhaps a touch of weasel thrown in for the fun of it. Might as well soap some of the animal kingdom off. Pick a shampoo, Pidge. I've been dying to get my hands on your hair since I met you. It's such an interesting color.”

“It's brown,” Pidge said, looking to Allura for help; any of those hundreds of bottles could contain _anything._ “Nothing special about brown.”

“Girl, you're talking to someone who's used to seeing purple fur, ranging from nearly black to nearly silver. Brown is very interesting.” Lizenne nodded thanks to Allura, who had passed Pidge a bottle of something green. “Nice texture, too.”

Allura examined a lock of her own cream-colored hair. “I inherited the family hair; Father's side of the family has been platinum blonde for tens of generations. Mother also had it; I think that they were distantly related—seventh or eighth cousins several times removed. The heraldry's a bit complex. Hmm. Perhaps I should dye mine.”

Pidge wiped fragrant suds away from her eyes and squinted at Allura. “Why? It's nice how it is.”

Allura sneered and flicked the lock away. “Lotor's also a platinum. I want absolutely no similarities between him and myself at all.”

Lizenne, scrubbing busily at Pidge's scalp, cocked her a questioning glance. “Wanted something other than Voltron's surrender, did he?”

Allura sank down in the water with a disgusted sound. “He is a cad, and makes Lance at his worst look like the most courtly of gentlemen.”

Lizenne's hands paused mid-scrub, and she and Pidge stared at Allura in dismay. “Yuck,” Pidge said. “Seriously?”

Allura grimaced and grabbed for a bottle of something blue. “Lance, at least, means no harm by his antics, and he does not actively seek to injure anyone's sensibilities. There is actual sincerity somewhere under all of that nonsense, which you may be sure that Lotor lacks. He wanted my surrender, all right, and I very much doubt that I am the only woman that he's demanded that from!”

Lizenne nodded and resumed her ministrations to Pidge's hair. “That's not uncommon, unfortunately. Galra men are proud fellows, and sometimes they become too proud of themselves. You've seen how Modhri acts around me.”

Allura nodded, secretly envious. “He lets you take the lead, and is downright submissive at times.”

“Yes. That's how a Galra man should act, traditionally speaking, when a woman has taken him as her mate. He trades power for happiness, pride for privilege, and aggressiveness for love. Unfortunately, we've been breeding for the rougher traits for rather longer than we should—all for the expansion of the Empire, and the Emperor's power.” Lizenne cast her an apologetic look. “A fair section of the male population is no longer interested in making those trades, and since nine out of ten of them will never breed anyway, they've started to develop a liking for non-Galra females. Particularly in light of the fact that those females are unable to control them with a quick tickle behind the ears like a Galra woman can.”

“Until now,” Allura pointed out, blowing at the azure froth pouring out of her hair. “Humans can do that.”

“Yes,” Lizenne mused, “and I really must look into that. All right, Pidge, rinse that out, and can you tell me how old your people are as a species?”

Pidge ducked, splashed about, and came up spluttering. “It depends on who you ask,” she said, wiping water out of her eyes. Some say that we got our start as Humans about three to five million years ago. Others say that actual _Homo Sapiens—_ that's us as we are now—didn't really develop until three hundred thousand years or so ago.”

Lizenne tapped her teeth with a fingernail thoughtfully. “That's much too long ago for any meddling on our part. Still, our pre-spaceflight history is easily that long, and we were being watched by other peoples even then... the Xor Hanai could have done it, if only out of perversity, and the Kamools also loved that sort of joke. Maybe even the Yuloris would have lowered themselves to that sort of dirty work, if the need was great enough. I'm sorry if I'm being cryptic, but there is a chance that our peoples are related. The Elder Races were not above fooling around with the genetics of their juniors.”

“Wonderful,” Pidge grumbled. “I get a whole race of fuzzy purple cousins, even if some of them are jerks. Hey, Allura, how'd you deal with Lotor?”

Allura held up her hands with an evil smile. “The guards had cuffed my hands in front of me, which gave me a certain amount of freedom. I could not do it quite properly, but the Thing With the Thumbnails was effective, even so.”

Lizenne barked a laugh, and Pidge cackled. “How grand!” Lizenne said cheerfully. “You've drawn blood on the Crown Prince, dear, and are probably the only person other than his weapons instructor to do so. He'll be wary of you from now on, trust me on that. Well done.”

Pidge stared at her delicate little hands and sighed. “I wish I could do that. Curse my fairy fingers.”

“You could try changing their shape a little,” Allura suggested. “We did turn into a dragon recently.”

“That was mostly you that did the trick,” Pidge disagreed. “And it takes up too much energy.”

Lizenne hummed absently, searching among the bottles and pulling out a slim vessel of something yellowish. “You might ask Hunk to make you up a pair of power gloves. I believe that the Castle has a machine deck.”

“Too bulky,” Pidge said glumly. “Maybe something like a finger-cap with retractable claws...”

Lizenne picked up a soft brush and waved it at her. “No. You'd be forever losing them, and you'd risk breaking your fingers each time you put them on. The Ilindrans make a very nice line of power gloves, barely thicker than cloth, and can wire in small forceblade generators for the claws. Some of them practice a style of martial arts based on those things, and they are rightly feared. You'd be an interesting challenge for those craftsmen, being so small and having only five fingers. Would you help me scrub my back, please? I think that I wrenched my shoulder a bit when we swatted Sendak across the room.”

Allura helped with that, too, discovering that washing a Galra's hair was a whole-body enterprise. Her fur was as fine as velvet along the belly and limbs, longer and silky over her back, lengthening into a mane over the scalp and the back of her neck. It also got _everywhere_ when she rinsed.

“Holy crap, Lizenne, you're shedding like a collie in August!” Pidge exclaimed, watching the cloud of purple expand in the water.

“I've blown my undercoat,” Lizenne said in disgust. “No more magic for me for at least a week. That goes double for you two, who aren't used to that sort of effort. Before you ask, if we strip any more energy out of our bodies, we risk injury or illness that might take months to recover from, or a long sleep in the medipods at the very least! As it is, we'll have to be very careful about regaining weight and muscle tone, considering how much the Lions demand of you. Perhaps a little time spent in the medipods would be a good thing at that.”

“Maybe,” Allura said, tracing the knobs of Lizenne's spine with a finger, “if only to ease that shoulder.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, running fingers along her own protruding ribs. “Are we done? I'm getting hungry again.”

“I'll run the cleaning cycle on the tub,” Allura said, and glanced at the purpling water. “And possibly empty the lint trap. There's a drying tube over there and there should be bathrobes in that closet. I don't think that we want to touch our clothes again just now.”

They looked at the heap of foul laundry. It might have looked back.

“Ugh, no,” Pidge said. “Where's the laundry slot? Never mind, I see it. Yuck, I'm going to need tongs for some of that.”

“Dry off first,” Lizenne said, “I think I see something useful on the drinks bar.”

The drying tube was fun. It was sort of like being inside one of those paperless hand dryers you found inside public bathrooms, only quieter, and it worked very quickly. Unfortunately, it also made her hair stand up in a huge puffball. Allura handed her a comb and a blue bathrobe that had been embroidered with what might have been flowers before stepping into the tube herself. It was comforting to Pidge to see that Allura's hair had fared no better than hers; she looked so perfectly-groomed most days that Pidge often felt slightly second-rate around her. It did Pidge's secret heart good to see the Princess fighting her own scalp for supremacy. And Lizenne... Pidge had to stifle a laugh. Despite the lost undercoat, she came out downright fluffy, although it cost the tube's air filter a major hairball. Quite unabashed by this, Lizenne slid on a robe that was slightly too short for her and nipped the comb out of Allura's hands, taming the wild, cream-colored mop with authoritative strokes. “Methinks the Queen kept that thing for amusement's sake,” Lizenne murmured. “Can you imagine Coran coming out of that? No wonder the private apartments have handheld versions.”

“Or Modhri,” Allura giggled, and winced as a tangle was pulled out. “Poor Modhri. I feel very bad about scaring him.”

“He's going to be angry with me for a while,” Lizenne said sadly. “I lack caution, I'll fully admit that, and that does get me into trouble at times. This one was a bit extreme, even for me.”

“We shouldnt've forgotten our bayards,” Pidge said, waving her comb at them. “He was right about that. He will come around soon, won't he?”

Lizenne nodded. “I'll have to grovel a little and you'll have to make and keep a promise to carry your bayards always, but yes.” She smiled possessively. “I did well to choose him.”

Allura looked up quizzically at her. “You said that your society was naturally matriarchal; how did you wind up with an Emperor? Why not an Empress?”

Lizenne snorted. “Because the two that we had were a single, unmitigated disaster that nearly destroyed us. Are you sure that you want that history lesson?”

“It would help us understand you a little better,” Pidge said. “I don't know how much Allura knows about Galran civilization. I don't know anything at all.”

“Very little,” Allura admitted. “I was being trained to govern my own people, not anybody else's, and while the Galra had their own sphere of influence at that time, it didn't overlap much more than superficially with ours, at least at first. Father mentioned once that he'd made friends with Zarkon almost by accident. Voltron changed everything.”

“That it did. That ridiculous machine is very nearly more trouble than it's worth,” Lizenne grumbled sourly. “Our social structure had taken some bad hits both before and after its construction, but originally, in the ancient days, we lived as seminomadic family groups, each with a territory that comprised as much as three or four hundred square miles of forest. Each group, or pack, was headed by the Matriarch and her man, supported by their daughters, and guarded by their sons. Everything revolved around the cubs. The women's main duties were to protect the cubs with their powers, lead the men to the hunt, and keep predators away. The Matriarch's man was in charge of caring both for her and for the children. The younger men served as troops, and in doing so, competed for the attentions of the girls from unrelated packs. It worked nicely, and for a very long time. There was a very complex web of alliances and feuds going on at all times, of course, and our ancient legends and literature are full of little wars and drama. Eventually, of course, we developed a more modern way of living. Domestication of certain animals, some forms of agriculture, the mastery of fire and metals, how to build permanent structures, things like that.”

“But you kept the matriarchy,” Pidge said.

Lizenne shrugged, handed her the comb, and began to braid Allura's hair. “It had worked very well for us so far. Why drop it then? We developed the usual governmental structures as villages started growing into towns, and towns into cities. Little counties into domains, and small domains into big ones. Naturally, the packs with the most powerful witches tended to win the arguments that popped up between them, and so we made a habit of breeding for strong talent. In less than two thousand years, we went from setting predators on fire by swearing at them to being able to blow whole buildings apart if we wanted to.”

“Wow,” Pidge said, “can you do that?”

Lizenne shook her head and finished the braid, tying it off with a bit of string pulled from one sleeve of her robe. “No. Not without doing myself an injury. If I wanted to destroy a house, I'd do it in small ways. Overload its power core, crack the plumbing, take a slice out of the main load-bearing members, things like that. There are no more of the truly great ones, and haven't been for millennia. The reason for that was the Sisterhood War.”

“You've mentioned that war before,” Allura said. “A pair of twins, and very powerful ones, with powerful ambitions.”

“Empresses Tolari and Sehaila of the Banabuk Domain. The two most powerful sorceresses ever born.” Lizenne looked down at her hands and sighed. “It was said that they could smash a fleet of starships with the force of their minds alone. Such power isn't good for living minds, especially ones already predisposed to selfishness. Like Zarkon, they wanted it all, and they were prepared to destroy any who resisted them. No, not just prepared. Eager. Before they took the Throne, there were several dozen schools of witchcraft, each with their own disciplines and secrets. When they refused to teach the Twins those secrets, the Twins destroyed them, capturing the most skilled practitioners and torturing them until they divulged everything. There is only one surviving discipline, which descends directly from the Twins' own.”

“And Tahe Moq,” Allura pointed out.

“Tahe Moq did not originate on Galran Prime.” Lizenne sat down in a nearby chair, running the comb absently through her own hair. “Namtura's not all that far from Zampedri, and they learned it from the dragons; probably in much the same way that I did. They got to be quite good at it, and Queen Zaianne was the best. Hah. According to the Histories, she was not at all happy to be called back to Namtura when the old Queen died, but she consoled herself by teaching every young lady of talent she could find the discipline, and wound up with a coven of at least three dozen very skilled mages. This eventually included her own daughters, and their daughters. Very strong, that pack. Strong enough to give the Twins their first real defeat.”

“That must have upset them,” Pidge observed.

“They were furious. It's said that a whole wing of their palace had to be rebuilt after they were done with their temper tantrum. Never before had they been denied something that they had wanted.” Lizenne smiled wryly. “Nobody had ever dared to tell them 'no' before, much less slapped them for behaving badly. Zaianne rallied all of the other offworld colonies to her side, and a fair few alien allies as well. I am not sure, since the records of that time are a little spotty, but one of the Altean Perfect Mirrors may well have joined Zaianne's coven as a secret weapon. That would certainly explain the manner of the Twins' eventual demise; it was said that they hurled all of their power at Zaianne and her witches during the final battle, and that it was returned to them tenfold, destroying them and their forces utterly.”

“Sure, that would do it!” Pidge said enthusiastically. “If Zaianne and her team had already loaded the Mirror with power, and then the Twins threw everything they had at him, or her, whichever, then—Kaboom!”

“Precisely, although it resulted in the immolation of the Mirror. That sacrifice is honored every year on Namtura during the Triumph Day festivities.” Lizenne sighed. “There are just some things that living flesh cannot contain. After that, alas, came the cleanup. The Twins' allies and cronies were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands, and small, ugly wars sprang up by the dozen in the power vacuum that their deaths created. Galran Prime was devastated, politically and ecologically, the Colonies had taken similar damage, and when it all was added up, over two billion people had died on the homeworld alone. We might have devolved back into barbarism entirely if it hadn't been for Modhri.”

The two girls stared at her. _“Modhri?”_

“Modhri the Wise, First Emperor of Galran Prime. My own Modhri is named for him, along with countless others since that time. He was one of Zaianne's many sons, and he spent his entire life restoring order to the smashed civilization that the Twins had left behind. He was a wonderful fellow, and he did so well in his office that nobody was willing to unseat him, not even his wife. During his reign, it was decreed that women could no longer rule as Empresses or Queens—not because we were bad administrators, but because we were entirely too good at it. My ancestresses didn't mind, since that freed us from those responsibilities and allowed us to pursue our studies in peace. Unfortunately, that autonomy had its downsides—there was neither warning nor adequate defense when someone started assassinating every practitioner of _Tahe Moq_ they could find. It took over a century for that assassin to find them all, but there were no survivors.”

“And no more truly powerful witches,” Allura said, “did they ever find the assassin?”

“No, and to tell you the sad truth, the authorities didn't look very hard. For obvious reasons, strong witches, even heroic ones, weren't all that popular anymore. It's said in some quarters that Haggar herself was the assassin, but it was never conclusively proven.” Lizenne shrugged. “Emperor Modhri did just fine with his wife and daughters, and his most skilled son took the throne after he died. The line continued successfully enough for several more generations. Then, one day, Crown Prince Rhonorath was assassinated just before his coronation by an agent of a rival alien civilization, which began another war. There was a very great deal of nastiness, and then Zarkon became Emperor. That's when the official Histories began, although when you cross-check the events therein with the records from other civilizations, the events recorded do not always match up. Some events are left out, altered, or made up out of whole cloth. There are whole scholarly societies that have been very quietly trying to piece together the truth for generations now.”

“Good luck to them, I say,” Pidge said, standing up and putting her glasses back on. “Let's go see if they left that float-pallet here, and then see if there's anything good in the kitchen, okay? I'm really hungry.”

“So am I,” Allura agreed. “Lizenne?”

“I could eat.”

As it turned out, they didn't have to go anywhere. Not only was the float-pallet still present, but so was Hunk, and two bowls of enticingly fragrant things. “Hi there,” Pidge said, eyeing the bowls, “what are you doing out here?”

“Guarding your honor, actually,” Hunk rolled his eyes. “Lance was trying to find a peephole in the door, or listen in on what you were saying—he couldn't by the way, it's soundproof and he was kinda mad about that. I was trying to get him to go away, but Modhri caught him at it and dragged him away by the ankle. He got away somehow, and came right back, and then Zaianne came and dragged him away by the ankle. He hasn't come back yet, so she's probably stapled him to a wall or something. I brought you some munchies, too. These are for you and Lizenne, still hot, even. Allura, try these out and tell me what you think.”

The girls looked at the bowls in perplexity. They were quite large; the bigger of the two was full of crisp-fried somethings that looked a little like crab rangoons and smelled good, and the smaller was full of small, cylindrical objects that were pink and blue and looked a little like large gummy candies.

Pidge glared at those suspiciously. “Hunk, did you just invent jelly sausages?”

“Altean-style. Umenla and slilsen in a reloq casing and flash-cooked,” Hunk said primly. “Now eat. I can practically see right through you.”

“You can not,” Pidge said irritably.

Hunk scowled at her. “Can too, especially with your collarbones sticking up like that. Eat. Allura, you too.”

Allura took her bowl and tasted one of the “sausages” cautiously, then brightened up and dug right in. “These are excellent! Thank you, Hunk. Would you like to try one, Pidge?”

Pidge's expression of horrified disgust could have won prizes. Lizenne laughed at her and waved one of the fried things under Pidge's nose, the rich aroma quite distracting her from Allura's squishier snacks. Whatever it was, it was good, and her stomach immediately demanded more.

“Thank you very much, Hunk,” Lizenne said. “We'll bring the bowls back when we're done. Try to find out what Zaianne did to Lance, and then bring him back here; we should be out and gone well before you're done rescuing him, and the tub's wonderful for soaking the ache out of sore parts.”

He grinned at her. “And he'll have plenty. Keith and I will probably join him, since I haven't seen a hot tub in months and Keith still hasn't figured out that upside-down pool. See you later.”

Lizenne watched him go, nibbling at one of the pseudo-rangoons. “Allura, has anyone ever figured out that upside-down pool?”

The Princess giggled. “No. Coran's grandfather got mad at mine, once, and built it to get even with him. If there was a solution to that puzzle, he took it to his grave.”

“I'll have a look at it later,” Pidge said.

 

Haggar sat on the edge of the Emperor's healing pod, fuming at this latest disaster and glaring at the terrified soldier who was reading off the damage report. She was sore and singed and far too tired to be civil to anyone, and this poor idiot—who had probably drawn the short straw—knew very well that one wrong move out of him could end his life. She could hear his knees knocking from across the room. Most of the actual physical damage to the Spacehab was minor; surprisingly few of the corrupted bomb units had actually gone off, and while it would be expensive to have to replace every drone unit, it wasn't crippling. The real problem was that thrice-damned computer virus that had set about devouring every single AI-driven or -controlled system in the area, and it had even spread to some of the battleships that had been guarding Parzurak. Haggar had had her hands full in keeping the filthy thing out of this particular room; there was no telling what it would have done to Zarkon, had it been permitted to spread that far. As it was, the technicians were going to have to decontaminate every electronic device on the station, up to and including the kitchen equipment. Worse, every prisoner and slave aboard the station had escaped, along with the special ones. She had looked into that, of course, and had found certain anomalies that had not sweetened her temper in the slightest.

The doors hissed open unannounced to add the further insult of having her thoughts interrupted, and she looked up to see a most unwelcome visitor. The soldier gulped and bowed jerkily, although Haggar did not so much as give the intruder a nod. Well, that was all right, because Lotor wasn't in a mood to offer pleasantries either. “Haggar,” he barked, “what has been going on? The entire Spacehab is in an uproar! The first thing that I saw coming out of my quarters was a pair of Sentries dancing, and that was only the start.”

Haggar sighed. “It's in the command deck, too. Damn.” She flicked a hand at the quivering soldier, who flinched. “Leave us. Go and get a technician to deal with those.”

“Yes, Lady Haggar,” the soldier said with another jerky bow, and fled.

Haggar watched him go, then turned to the Prince, spearing him with a disapproving look. “And where the hell have you been, that you did not notice anything out of the ordinary?”

He shifted, wincing slightly as he did so, and Haggar noticed the stiffness in his left side. “Sleeping off an anesthetic, if you must know. I had an accident that required medical attention.”

“Really?” Haggar asked, a certain suspicion rising in her mind. “You are a fine swordsman and the flagship pilots reported no difficulty in returning home. I hardly think that you might have hurt yourself cutting up your lunch.”

“It is nothing, Haggar.” Lotor said testily.

“Do not lie to me,” she retorted in a voice like iron, “what happened?”

Lotor hadn't even the grace to look embarrassed. “If you must know, I wanted a talk with that Altean that you insisted that I fetch for you. She took offense at my words.”

Haggar looked at him, looked at the slight bulge under his shirt that suggested a bandage... yes, right under the breastbone and under the left side of the ribcage. Given Lotor's proclivities, she should have known that this sort of thing would have been all but inevitable. “You idiot. She had her hands bound in front of her, didn't she?”

Lotor flushed angrily. “She's an Altean, not a Galra. How was I to know that she would know about the Thing With the Thumbnails?”

“Alteans are _shapeshifters,_ you dolt. You knew that, and you knew that she'd been keeping company with a rogue witch. Of course that woman would have taught the girl a thing or two about foolish young men, and what to do if they got too pushy. I've had to do it a few times myself, believe it or not. Your failures do not end there, boy. Why was I not told that the Paladin was a Technomancer?”

Lotor stared at her. “Because _I_ wasn't told. If anyone should have known, it would have been Sendak. Where is he, by the way? I've tried to contact him three times, and he hasn't answered.”

Haggar glared at him, then pulled a large jar out of her robes and set it down on Zarkon's slab. It contained ashes and a few scraps of twisted metal. “He is in no way able to answer.”

Lotor stared in mild horror at the jar. “Is that...”

Haggar tapped the lid of the jar with a claw. “This is the end result of a declaration of _kheshveg._ The jar contains the whole of what was left of him, save for enough ash to comprise his skull. You were his commander, and you should have been there to guide him. You were not, and as a result, you have lost a valuable servant. Might I add that the same witch who did this has also declared _kheshveg_ against your father? You might find yourself added to her list as well, since you were complicit in her capture.”

Lotor bared his teeth at her. “That witch was hand-delivered to you! It wasn't my fault that she escaped with the other two and went on a rampage. Weren't you going to turn that _bitra_ into a Druid, anyway?”

“I had already started the process,” Haggar snapped, “it would not have gone awry if that Paladin had not escaped. Wriggle though you might, boy, _that_ prisoner was ultimately your responsibility, and your moment of self-indulgence has nearly lost us this Station.”

His eyes flared; Lotor was unaccustomed to answering to any other authority than his father's, and he disliked the witch intensely. She was right, too, and that only angered him further. “You go too far, witch,” he growled, hand inching toward his sword.

“You do to little,” she said icily, purple sparks glittering around her fingers.

There was a sudden harsh breath from the healing pod that made them both start in surprise, and they turned and stared at its occupant. Zarkon had turned his craggy face toward them, and one eye had opened a slit, gleaming palely in the dim air. “...Lotor...” he hissed, barely audible.

“I am here, Father,” Lotor said, his quarrel with Haggar forgotten for the moment.

Zarkon pulled in a labored breath. “...They were here... the Paladins... the Lions. My Lion. I felt it.”

“Yes, Father,” Lotor said with a sharp glance at Haggar. “They got away.”

Zarkon bared sharp teeth. “Find them. Destroy... the Paladins. All... six. Bring me... my Lion.”

“Six?” Haggar asked.

“Six. They dare...” Zarkon's words trailed off in a moan, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Haggar humphed, then turned to the Prince. “You have your orders. Do not fail him again. I will see to mine.”

Lotor gave her a fulminating glare before turning to leave. “Yes, and see that you do not fail him again either.”

Haggar did not blast him for his impertinence, but it was a very near thing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: *peels rotting carcass up off floor* Be like the Galra. Comments or DEATH! *passes out again*  
> Spanch: Please.


	10. Hijinks and Hijacking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: Time for adventure! As always, thank you to everyone who left a comment or kudos on our fic. It's what keeps us going and assures us that people actually enjoy what we do.

Chapter 10: Hijinks and Hijacking

 

The Castle and the _Chimera_ were currently orbiting Lanteschi again, partly because it was handy, and partly because Hunk insisted. So, oddly enough, did Zaianne. Hunk's excuse was culinary in nature; he was absolutely determined to put the lost weight back on Pidge's bones, and then some, and told the other two that they could stand to gain an ounce or three themselves. Lizenne had merely laughed at this and told him that he would never see a fat witch. Hunk seemed to have taken that as a challenge, and pressed snacks on them whenever he could. As a result, he'd gone right through his supply of those interesting seasonings and spices that the Castle's kitchen couldn't quite manage to replicate, and so had insisted that they return to Lanteschi to let him replenish the pantry. Allura and the others were quite willing to comply—one of the spices he'd picked up there tasted almost exactly like Earthian chocolate, a flavor that absolutely everyone, including the mice and dragons, had become most enamored of. Hunk liked to use it in cookies, and the fights that broke out over those were extremely amusing.

Zaianne liked the place because she could communicate freely with her fellow Blades from there without worrying about attracting Ghamparva. The local sun, she informed her crewmates, emitted a pattern of radio hash that her people could hide encrypted messages in, and that confused anyone who might be listening. She also really liked Hunk's cookies, but that had little bearing on her other work.

Moreover, it gave them time and gentle exercise. Despite two sessions in the medipods, Lizenne, Pidge, and Allura remained underweight, although they were recovering quickly, and Lizenne insisted on a program of strength and agility training that was more like dance than anything else. “This has happened to me before,” she told them after a session that had left them all aching and sweaty. “It's imperative that we tone up as we bulk up, or we'll lose everything we've gained all at once the next time we have to perform a major spell. Dense muscle, that's the ideal, and at least this gives us an excuse to use Emaltris's hot tub again.”

“I assume that you were on Zampedri at the time,” Allura said, “how did you do it there?”

Lizenne smiled nostalgically. “The dragons would take me on short hunts to build me up again, and if you think Hunk is pushy with the food, you should see Tilla when she's being motherly! There is also a hotspring in their home range that was absolutely wonderful to soak in. I really must take you all there someday for a good year's run in the grasses.”

“A whole year?” Pidge asked in dismay. “How do you manage in the winter?”

“By learning to ignore how I smell when I'm wet.” Lizenne chuckled. “At that latitude, Zampedri doesn't really have winter, just a rainy season. It never gets very cold there. Midsummer can be quite hot, but that just means that you spend the days sleeping and hunt at night instead.”

“Huh,” Allura said dubiously. “What about injuries, or illnesses? Don't tell me that those don't happen.”

“They do, but the dragons have that problem figured out.” Lizenne ran her fingers through her thickening mane, scratching vigorously at her scalp and the back of her neck where her fur was growing back in. “The bond between packmates grows so strong that they can tell when one of their own is feeling off-color practically before he does, and the first aetheric technique they learn is how to heal such things, both in themselves and in others, and they gain skill and power as they age. There are dragons alive today who are thousands of years old. Tilla and Soluk are relative youngsters—they're only four or five centuries old.”

Pidge stared at her. “Can you do that?”

“Possibly.” Lizenne leaned back on her hands and stared at the ceiling with a frown. “I probably won't, though. I can't preserve Modhri the same way—not with that ward I had to set in him—and I will not even consider living without him. It's also suspiciously close to what Zarkon and Haggar may be doing to preserve their own lives. Haggar worked with Queen Zaianne during the Sisterhood war, and may have picked up some of the secrets before that coven was destroyed. If that's so, I don't want to risk developing the same sort of bad habits. We're a long-lived bunch compared to some, but we aren't mentally set up to face eternity without going mad.”

Pidge sighed and nodded. “Hardly anybody is. I want a bath. Let's go see if the hot tub's free.”

It was, and they had a lovely warm soak before going their separate ways. Lizenne wanted a nap, Allura wanted to talk to Coran, Modhri, and Zaianne about their next move, and Pidge wanted to poke around in her lab a little. The makeshift aetheric computer virus that she'd crippled Parzurak Spacehab with needed tweaking, and she was the sort who liked a nice, polished code with plenty of possibilities in it. She was considering a version that would lurk invisibly in an enemy ship's system until she called it to duty when she passed the training deck, and a muttered “Aha!” from one of the sparring rooms distracted her from her calculations. That was Hunk, and he was either going to feed her again or--

A pair of large hands gripped her around the waist and lifted her up, an annoyingly common occurrence of late. “Hi,” she said irritably, “have I gained any weight back yet?”

He hefted her carefully, a considering look on his face. She looked over at Keith and Lance, who looked to have just finished up a training session and were ready for a little weightlifting. Pidge wondered what it said about her that she was starting to enjoy this. Well, she'd be the one having all the fun this time; Lizenne had said just an hour or so ago that she could do a little light magic now. Of course, the guys didn't know that yet.

“Not really,” Hunk said, “what do you think, Lance?”

Pidge yipped as she was tossed into the air and caught a second later by Lance. “Nope, still light as a feather. How 'bout you, Keith?”

Keith caught her without a wince; his arm and shoulder had healed nicely, Pidge observed as she went airborne again. Hunk caught her easily, and she grabbed his collar before he could launch her again. “Guys, stop, I really want to get to the lab. I've got an idea that I want to work on that might save us a lot of trouble in the field.”

“Oh c'mon, Pidge, let us play a little,” Lance said cheerfully, and she recognized his expression—that of an older brother teasing his sister. “It's great exercise.”

Her eyes glinted. “Exercise, huh? Fine. How about this?”

She shut off the gravity, kicking off of Hunk's chest with ease, bounced off the ceiling as the others drifted upwards, and ricocheted toward the door. Keith caught her before she could make it to safety, however, and grinned at her yelp of dismay. “This is even better,” he said cheerfully, “thanks! Over to you, Lance.”

They'd been practicing hard, she thought sourly as she was passed around at all angles like a football. That was probably Zaianne's fault, who was even better at zero-G acrobatics than Allura and insisted that her son and his adoptive brothers attain that same level of skill. Not that she blamed the lady, but she was starting to get tired of this. When Pidge found that no amount of bouncing or deflection of her own was going to free her from these jerks, she decided to take drastic measures. A moment's concentration found what she was looking for, but the momentary distraction landed Hunk's shoulder squarely in her stomach. “Oof!” she puffed. “All right, that's done it, no more Miss Nice Technomage. To me, my minions!”

Ports in the ceiling opened up and discharged three of the gladiator-class training drones, which were just as good at moving in zero-G as any of the Paladins. “Whoops!” Hunk yelped, getting a grip on Pidge, “Run!”

 

Out in the lounge, Allura accepted another cup of hantic-leaf tea and a cookie, which really were very pleasant. Zaianne had recently shared a progress report on the Blades' activities, and she and Modhri and Coran were discussing the possibilities presented by that. The Blades had also been keeping in touch with the Olkari, who were more than willing to help confound the enemy wherever possible. This was very encouraging; it was always good to have some of the galaxy's best engineers on your side. Right now, the current projects centered on locating the secret stockpiles of Quintessence and stealing them away, if possible. Zaianne herself had given them a fine start by stealing the key to one of the main ones; the trick was finding an opportunity to use it.

“Of course, it's all moot if they simply change the locks,” Coran pointed out, but Modhri gestured a negative.

“They won't,” he replied in his deep, quiet voice. “I had to ferry a shipment to one of those hoards, once. That was a strange trip. The Druid in charge of the cargo wouldn't allow me or any of my bridge crew on the command deck while the coordinates were laid in, coming and going, and it wiped the ship's recording of the whole trip. I was allowed to see the key in use, however, possibly because the Druid wanted to overawe the jumped-up engineer-turned-captain. It's an aetheric device. The Druid held it up as we approached the station, which was built right into a large asteroid, and the key started to glow purple. The blast doors—very large ones—cycled open, and we sailed right inside. The whole crew were as jumpy as torlacks when those doors closed behind us, and stayed that way until we were allowed to leave. I doubt very much that the key will open anything if it isn't held by a powerful witch. Lizenne told me once that such locks and keys take a staggering amount of time and energy to set up, much less change. They're far more likely to try ambushing us when we approach the stockpile.”

“Interesting,” Zaianne murmured, which Allura had learned was Marmoran for “I did not know that, and now that I do, I will use that information to crush our foes utterly”. Zaianne had a gift for understatement that Allura secretly admired.

“Were you able to find out which stockpile your key was for?” Allura asked curiously. “If not, perhaps we can see if Pidge or Lizenne, or I for that matter--”

There was a curious, distant rumbling noise from one of the doors, and what sounded like shouting, sounds that made her pause. A few moments later, three boys barreled through the door, Hunk with Pidge slung over one shoulder, and stampeded through the door on the other side of the room. Close after them came three combat drones from the training deck. “Rescue me, my minions!” they heard Pidge's receding cry in the distance.

Allura and the others watched them go in bemused silence, and then Coran chuckled. “I see that she's feeling better. Ah, youth! How grand it is to be so resilient!”

Zaianne smirked. “It's just as well, considering how lacking in sense your basic teenager is. You were saying, Allura?”

“Ah—yes,” Allura said, ordering her thoughts. “I was just thinking that--”

There was a crash, a good deal of distant yelling, and the stampede came back through the far door and hurtled through the near one. This time, the combat drones were followed by Lance's rogue sewing machine, clicking menacingly as it whizzed through the air on its little hoverpad. Modhri began to laugh helplessly as the others watched the ferocious appliance zoom off down the hall.

“It's just as well that he never found the serger,” Allura said weakly. “Where was I?”

“I'm not sure,” Coran said over Modhri's chortling. “Whoops, here they come again.”

This time, Pidge was riding piggyback on one of the drones, yelling “I'll get you my pretties, and your little dog too!” as they stampeded back through the room; in addition, both Tilla and Soluk were following the drones, the sewing machine still clicking along behind them.

“Dog?” Coran asked blankly, and then cast a sidelong look at Zaianne, who was trying not to burst into laughter as well. “Is this another Earthly media reference?”

“Yes, and something of a classic. The villain was a good deal more memorable than the heroes were.” Zaianne patted Modhri on one shaking shoulder in a kindly gesture while he gasped for breath.

When the door hissed open a little later, Pidge walked through it quite alone and sat down next to Allura, accepting a cup of tea and a cookie from her still-snickering uncle. “Hi,” she said, nibbling daintily at the cookie. “Are we making any progress?”

“More or less,” Coran said, saluting her. “Did you let them live, I wonder?”

Pidge shrugged. “Yeah, we still need them, after all. I just had the drones hold them down while the sewing machine stitched their pants together. I left the brushes with them, too, 'cause the dragons wanted a polish. It'll keep them busy for a little while.”

Allura giggled. “I see that the Castle's not fighting you anymore. Thanks for not turning off the gravity in here, by the way.”

Pidge grinned. “I didn't really want to spend the afternoon mopping tea-stains off of the ceiling, and it's a waste of good cookies. Yeah, the Castle lets me direct some of the small stuff, but I still can't touch the main systems that way, or the pods, or any Lion but mine, of course.”

“Of course,” Allura said. “but we may have something else to look at. The key that Zaianne stole is an aetheric device. It may be worth our while to take a good look at it and see what locks it might open.”

Pidge brightened up at that. “That would be interesting, but doesn't Kolivan have it right now?”

Zaianne nodded. “He knows where we are and can send it back if necessary. He'll probably send someone along anyway to check up on us. Word of our little adventure has gotten out, you see, and has caused some ripples in Imperial society. The first time we struck, we laid the Emperor low; the second time we struck, his fortress cracked. Zarkon has been considered invulnerable for centuries; the people now see that this is not so. Rebellions are being planned as we speak, pirates are emboldened, and resistance groups are growing in confidence. It's encouraging, and the resurrection of a dead planet or two will only enhance that.”

“So it will,” Coran said, saluting her with a cookie. “There's a fair few folks out there who'll be overjoyed to regain a lost homeworld. How does that work, do you know?”

“I haven't a clue.” Zaianne shrugged and stole his cookie. “Modrhi, have you any idea?”

“No.” Modhri said, passing Coran another cookie before the Altean could get his mustache in a twist. “Lizenne doesn't either. This is dragon's work, and I know even less about that than I do of hers.”

Zaianne gazed at him thoughtfully for a long moment. “Who are the dragons, Modhri? They look and act like animals, very convincingly so, but they are far more than that.”

Modhri sighed and refilled his cup. “Once again, I don't know all that much. I do know that they are one of the Elder Races, and had a very nice little empire of their own, once. You can still find the ruins of that civilization on the planets near their world. They were, by our standards, a very great people. Very technologically advanced, and with a very deep understanding of aetheric science.”

A loud _gronk_ echoed in the far hallway. Coran blinked in that direction, looking puzzled. “So, what happened?”

“I'm not sure.” Modhri frowned into his steaming tea. “I'm told that they abandoned the trappings of civilization—dismantled their whole empire—because they didn't want to come to the attention of the greedy. I don't know who or what they were worried about, but I do know that the entire race made the change willingly. They enjoy life as they are now, I know that much, even with the risk of wild predators and offworld interests. You could ask Tilla and Soluk, I suppose, but all they'll tell you is _gronk._ Or send you a dream sequence that may or may not reveal anything.”

Pidge chuckled. “I've tried that before. I think that I prefer the gronking. Would it get any clearer if Lizenne managed to chase us around in the grass for a year like she's been threatening to?”

Modhri smiled fondly. “It's possible. Alas, we haven't the year to spare. Blame my own instincts, but I've been entertaining fond fantasies of us all out there on the Zampedran prairie as a proper pack, hunting freely and raising cubs as nature intended. I had hoped to do just that while I was recovering from my own wounds, but the dragons brought us a pair of visitors that changed everything.”

“Oh, dear,” Allura said apologetically, “I'm sorry.”

“Not your fault, Allura, and I regret nothing.” Modhri replied calmly. “More tea?”

A little while later, Keith and Hunk came back through the lounge, trying to hold their trousers together and not having much luck. Lance followed along behind, dangling by the collar of his jacket from Tilla's jaws, his trouser legs still sewn together.

“...coulda been a little more careful with that thing, Keith,” Hunk was grumbling, “these are the only pants I've got.”

Keith wasn't particularly sympathetic. “I didn't hit skin, did I? You should try cutting a seam from behind sometime, and with both of you guys flailing around like clowns the whole time. Lance, are you sure you don't want some help there?”

“I'll take care of it myself,” Lance grouched, “I've got enough holes in my jacket to mend right now, anyway. Pidge, I'm going to need that sewing machine back.”

Pidge stuck her tongue out at him. “You can have it back if you can catch it. No more games of cadet-toss, guys. If you want to see if I've gained weight, I'll stand on a scale.”

“All right, all right, fine,” Lance said, and flinched as the sewing machine soared suddenly around his head a few times, clicking derisively before zooming out of the room. “Seriously? Did you actually program that thing to mock me?”

Pidge grinned at him. “Maybe. Have fun finding out.”

Lance humphed. “You're no fun.”

Zaianne laughed. “I find her amusing enough. We'll make a proper Galra woman of her yet.”

Pidge blinked at her. “But I'm not Galra.”

“Close enough, and you've fondled my son's ears once already.” Zaianne glanced apprasingly at her son, who was going a bit red about those aforementioned ears. “Laying in your claim while you can.”

“They're a little young for that, aren't they?” Modhri asked mildly.

Zaianne smirked. “It's always good to start them early. You've my approval, girl, if you find that you want him for your own later on.”

By this time, both Keith and Pidge had gone very red, and Hunk was trying not to laugh. Lance looked about ready to say something inappropriate, but Coran got there first.

“Not at all uncommon, that,” he said, tugging at his mustache. “Why, most Paladin teams became so strongly bonded to each other that they _couldn't_ form a meaningful relationship outside their group. The team prior to Alfor's, well, it was pretty much a polychromatic cuddle convention, especially after a good battle. Whole shiploads of steamy romances were once written about the love affair that the green and blue Paladins had going on, and what they all got up to with the yellow fellow was the stuff of legend. He was an Ulomnian, by the way—all those tentacles, you know. Now, Zarkon tended toward that sort of thing too, at least until he got his first good look at the fresh young cadet who eventually became the green Paladin.”

By this time, all five Paladins were staring at him in horrified disbelief. Allura glared at him. “You are making that up.”

He grinned at her. “Some of it. Not much, though. Come on, Princess, scandalizing the cadets is another fine old tradition. Frankly, I'd been sort of worried that this lot's development had been stunted somehow. At least there are some females on the team this time. Should make things more interesting.”

There was a long moment of hot, embarrassed silence. Lance held out a hand. “Knife.”

Keith handed him his Marmoran blade, which Lance used to separate his trouser legs before handing it back. “Guys,” he said in a flat voice, “I think Coran deserves a dip in the upside-down pool. How 'bout you?”

Allura set her tea down and lunged forward, grabbed Coran by the front of his shirt and heaved him out of his seat. He spun yelping shrilly across the floor, whereupon the boys grabbed him by the wrists and ankles. “Wait!” he cried, struggling to free himself, “that pool's twenty feet straight up! You can't just throw me in!”

“We should be able to,” Allura said sternly, “if we throw you hard enough. It may take us a few tries, though. Polychromatic cuddle convention, indeed! Pidge?”

“Coming!” Pidge chirped and hopped up, but turned to face Zaianne before joining the group. “I am _not_ interested in Keith,” she stated firmly, eyes defiant. “Like we've had any time for that sort of thing anyway. Besides,” her expression turned impish and her voice rose up through a couple of octaves into a childish giggle. _“I'm_ gonna marry Uncle Modhri.”

With that, the whole crowd left the room, Coran slung between them like an exceptionally noisy hunting trophy.

Zaianne cast a sidelong glance at her remaining companion. “Shall I warn Lizenne that she's got competition?”

“The price of being desirable is that one is desired,” he murmured, refilling her cup. “I'm fairly sure that she was just teasing. I love her, but only as an uncle should, and Lizenne got to me first. A most engaging lot, these Humans.”

Zaianne chuckled. “So long as you catch them when young, yes.”

Lizenne ambled into the room perhaps a half-hour later, brushing at a damp spot on one sleeve and looking somewhat bemused. Modhri poured her a cup of tea. “Something wrong, my Lady?”

“Not with me,” she said, accepting the cup and sitting down. “Lance is chasing a sewing machine through the halls with a insect collector's net, the other Paladins and the dragons are in the rec room playing noisy video games, and I've just had to help Coran into a medipod. He had a sprained ankle, a couple of bumps on his head, the back of his suit had been ripped open clear down to his rump, and he was soaking wet.”

Modhri smiled. “They probably had Tilla toss him into the pool. He deserved it this time, I fear. Would you like some cookies, love?”

“Yes, thank you. He admitted that he had probably gone too far in his teasing, but he didn't want to discuss it any further than that. He was proud of them despite his injuries, though. Apparently the cadets that fight back make the best Paladins.”

Zaianne laughed. “Indeed! We've a fine team a-building, and no mistake. I assume that you would like to hear the details.”

“Tell all,” Lizenne said eagerly.

They'd just reached the point where Coran had been dragged away when Lance, his face triumphant, swaggered through the lounge towing a furiously-clicking sewing machine behind him, tangled in the net and further trussed up with his torn jacket. He saluted them merrily and carried on toward his room. Modhri burst into laughter again, and had some difficulty stopping.

 

A message arrived the following day, warning them that a courier would be coming with the stockpile key; it had indeed baffled the Marmoran scientists, and he wished to see what the Paladins could make of it. The courier himself was prompt, showing up only a couple of days later, and Zaianne recognized him instantly, even in plain clothes on the streets of Lanteschi's lacemaker's quarter. This was good, because nobody else would have guessed that he was a member of that secretive order.

Drosh was quite short for a Galra; no taller than Keith, in fact, and he freely admitted to being the runt of his clutch. A native of Korbex, he was nearly as broad as he was tall, his fur so dark a purple that he was nearly black, his large eyes sleepy-looking, and his motions slow and deliberate. That was all for show, as it turned out. In the comparatively much lighter gravity of the Castle, he could be stunningly fast and was strong enough to crush one of the sparring drones into a foot-square cube with his bare hands. He was certainly strong enough to surprise Soluk, who had gotten into a shoving match with him over the last of the cookies.

“I work at home, most days,” he rumbled by way of explanation while shoving the dragon bodily into a corner, claws skreeling over the floorplates. “Korbex's gravity's a good three times stronger than on Golraz Beta. Just walking down the street'll keep you fit. Been keeping an eye on our Governor. Korbexans and Golrazi ain't always been friendly, so the Emperor keeps an especial eye on us. Can't stay long, Zaianne, and sorry for that, but I'm posing as an aide's aide and only get two weeks' vacation per year.”

Zaianne, who was quite fond of her colleague, gave him a contrite look. “I hope that we didn't ruin any plans.”

“Nah. Wasn't nothing coming up but the season finale of some soap opera or other. Dull stuff.” He patted Soluk on the nose and offered him a cookie. “Meeting the folks on your end's a lot more interesting. Worth the trip just to see these big beasts.”

Soluk accepted the cookie with grace, eyeing Drosh with new interest.

Hunk humphed thoughtfully. “Maybe we should visit sometime. I saw a vid once where a fighter upped the gravity for strength training--”

Drosh cut him off with a sharp wave of one hand. “Don't. We get dumb people visiting every year with the same idea. Know what we call those at home? 'Jelly-bones'. They come to get strong and some do, yeah. The rest leave with smashed joints and burst hearts. Me and mine, we're designed to live there. Ain't no one else is. You cubs wouldn't last a day.”

“And that's why Kolivan sent you, right?” Lance asked with a smile. “Nobody picks a Korbexan's pockets.”

Drosh had a laugh like ten miles of gravel road and a pair of lower canines that were nearly tusks. Both were demonstrated amply. “S'right. Not more'n once, anyway. Your key, m'Lady.”

This last was said in as gentlemanly a voice as he was able to muster, and he drew a palm-sized object out of a pouch and laid it in Allura's hand with surprising delicacy. It was a flat, ring-shaped object that appeared to be made out of brass, and was engraved deeply with row after spiral row of peculiar symbols that were vaguely uncomfortable to look at.

“Mission accomplished, part one,” Drosh said gravely. “You ladies have a good look at that. Anything you can tell me about it'll go straight to Kolivan's ears—don't send no more messages, someone's been listening to us. Not enough to crack the encryption, but enough to know it's there.”

Keith muttered a curse. “We'll have to leave soon, then. Helenva told me enough about Ghamparva to know that I don't want to tangle with them.”

“Good boy,” Drosh said, nodding in approval. _“I_ don't like tangling with Ghamparva, so take that as a warning. Though Helenva's made good use of those little tricks your ladies here taught her.” Drosh boomed another laugh and winked suggestively at Lance. “Hard part's convincing her not to keep the worst of 'em as pets! Mean lady, good fighter. You could do worse, boy.”

Lance went pale and sidled behind Hunk. “No thanks, she's all yours,” he said, “I'm not up to her weight.”

Drosh smirked. “Few are. 'S good to see her playing, but... um. Is the Princess s'posed to be glowing pink like that?”

Allura had been staring at the engravings on the key, and she was indeed starting to emit a rosy glow. Lizenne hissed and snapped, “Modhri!”

Modhri reacted instantly, grabbing a napkin off of the table and lifting the artifact from Allura's hands. Allura gasped and shuddered, the glow fading. Modhri blinked and scowled. “Ugh. Haggar hexed this thing. I can feel it prying at the ward. Allura, are you all right?”

Allura sat down heavily on a nearby chair, rubbing at her eyes. “A slight headache.”

Lizenne laid a hand on her head, glared at the key in Modhri's hand, and growled, “Didn't she just? Drosh, do you know if that key has been handled by any other woman since Zaianne gave it over?”

“Not a one,” Drosh answered promptly. “Ain't got all that many girls on the team, and they was out working the whole time. Bites a witch's fingers, does it?”

“It does. Any witch that isn't Haggar or a Druid, and has stronger talent than Zaianne, will become very ill in short order if they touch it. Allura here has a natural resistance to that sort of thing, thankfully. Yes, I can break that hex, but it's going to leave me flat for the rest of the day. Unless...” she trailed off thoughtfully. “It _is_ a device. Pidge, what do you think?”

Pidge had been staring intently at the key. “I think that it stinks. I haven't smelled anything that bad since me and my folks visited Uncle Roscoe's dairy farm, and Gunther found some fishmeal fertilizer by the manure pile to roll in. Let me just look at that...”

“Don't touch it!” Hunk said.

Pidge wasn't listening. The object in Modhri's hand seemed to shimmer inside its own fog of nauseating miasmas, tendrils of which were drifting hungrily toward Allura and Lizenne. One streamer was trying to find purchase on Modhri's arm and failing. In her other sight, she saw the second skin of filmy gold beneath his fur that was protecting him from harm, its source burning in his mind. Her backbrain was already spinning in the way it did when she was building code, looking for the sequence that would nullify the ghastly worm program that infested the key. It clicked into place all at once, sharp and hot, and she blew it out over the reeking object. Modhri yelped as the key flared a sudden bright azure in his hand, scorching the napkin. There was a slight odor of singed fur as well.

“Sorry, Modhri,” she said, sagging down onto the chair next to Allura's, suddenly very tired. “It's clean now.”

“I'll happily sacrifice a hair or two for that,” Modrhi murmured, passing it back to Allura.

Lizenne's hand rested on Pidge's head as well, and she spoke a few words that left both girls feeling as though a cool breeze had blown through them, enormously refreshing. Lizenne grunted. “Yech. That was a strong one, all right. Well done, the pair of you.”

“But I didn't do anything!” Allura protested.

Lizenne tapped her gently on the nose. “Yes you did, you drew off enough of its power to allow Pidge to break the hex without injuring herself. That would have flattened me. The pair of you have abilities that I lack. It's as simple as that.”

Drosh had been watching all of this intently. “Right. Trip's worth it twice right there. We've located—not taken, but located—another couple of keys, last I was told. Boss was going to send our best witch to fetch one of 'em, directly after I passed him what you knew of this one. You've gone and saved her life just now.”

Keith smiled at him. “Give them a little time to recover, and we'll see if we can't make the trip three times worth it.”

“Aim for five, settle for three,” Drosh replied sagely, passing Pidge the cookies, which she attacked without hesitation. “Four's gravy, and six takes the cake.”

Hunk grinned. “I like that philosophy.”

“I grew up hearing worse,” Lizenne admitted, holding out her hand for the key, which Allura gave over in favor of a fistful of cookies. “There was a time when I smacked my brothers if I heard them spouting _'Vrepit Sa'_ anywhere near me. My turn. Now, what can this thing tell me...?”

She sat down beside them on the nearby couch, turning the key in her hands for a moment or two before setting it on the table. Lizenne began to chant softly, and the others watched in fascination as threads of gold formed out of the air around her, knotting around the key in an intricate tangle. The key rose up off of the table, turning in the air, and an image began to form in the air around it. It meant little to most of the watchers, but Zaianne and Drosh both made sounds of surprise. Stars glinted in the air around it like sequins, and then the whole thing unraveled, the key dropping back down onto the table with a clang.

“Auzorel Station,” Lizenne declared. “Septaph Sector, fourth quadrant, Morusk System, second asteroid belt from the suns, in orbit around that chunk of weblum's leftovers. Odd spot; that system's been largely abandoned since its greater sun had that big solar flare.”

“We know that place,” Drosh rumbled. “Dirt detail for soldiers that don't shape up quite fast enough and officers who've embarrassed themselves once too often. Sometimes a big ship'll drop by to drop off supplies and slackers, but that's about it. Heavily-guarded lump of nothing much, we thought.” He flicked a sidelong smile at Keith. “Three times worth it.”

“Never thought to investigate more deeply, did you?” Coran asked.

Heavy shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “Oh, we did, just didn't find nothing, and like I said, it's heavily guarded. Lots and lots of grumpy army types, bored out of their skulls and spoiling for a fight. Ran some scans, saw nothing but junk and a few dead zones, and before you ask, those were the core and drive sections. Those are _s'posed_ to be shielded heavy, so if they blow, maybe somebody might live to say so.”

Pidge humphed. “Does it have an AI? What about Sentries?”

Drosh waved a big hand. “Live personnel only. They've got an AI, but it's old and not very bright. That post is used as _punishment,_ d'you see; those that get sent there can't lump the extra-boring work on some robot or other that way, and it makes 'em extra-grateful when they're transferred out. Food's lousy, too, the commanding officer's a paranoid schizophrenic, and the place is half junkheap. Only interesting place in that system is the next planet in, where there's a small colony and a big salvage yard for old warship parts. Best stuff's kept in Auzorel for safekeeping.”

“Sounds like we should be able to take it, especially if Pidge grabs their AI,” Lance said with a smile. “What happens if they yell for help before she can catch it?”

Drosk grimaced. “They wait for two days until some military staffer in the next system over gets down to the bottom of his inbox. We suckered a Gantar pirate fleet into attacking the system a couple of times, just to see what would happen. Two days for the Station. Half a day for the colony. When help showed up, though, it showed up _big._ Makes you think, eh? If you boys can move fast, do it. Get in, find the stockroom, clean it out, and bail. Haggar'll likely pickle the Station's commander, and everybody posted there will buy tickets to watch.”

 

Drosh went in first, his small, fast ship far more able to duck away if necessary; scout work was right up his alley, and it wasn't long before he sent them the go-ahead and the string of coordinates for a safe orbit. Nobody was particularly surprised to find themselves a long way out indeed; at this distance, Auzorel Station looked more like a dirty snowball surrounded by a cloud of purple splinters than anything else. It was big, vaguely blocky, and had none of the signs of Imperial manufacture.

“That doesn't look like something a Galra'd make,” Hunk observed from his Lion's cockpit, narrowing his eyes at the orbital fort.

“Wrong color?” Lance asked.

“Wrong shape, wrong style, wrong everything,” Hunk replied. “Who built that? And when? That station's really old.”

“ _You've a good eye,”_ Modhri's voice came clearly through his comm. _“That's an old Jedrenickan mobile fortress. They were added to the Empire about three and a half, maybe four thousand years ago, although they didn't come quietly. Zarkon appropriated their space navies after their surrender, and some of it's still in use. The Jedrenickans believed in building to last.”_

“Wow,” Keith murmured. “That thing was built when the Pharaohs still ruled Egypt. Are its builders still around?”

“ _Yes and no,”_ Modhri replied, _“shortly after their surrender, they evolved into a higher life form and vanished. It's hard to tell who had the last laugh, however; their homeworld was colonized and stripped long ago.”_

“A bad habit that I intend to break the Empire of,” Allura said firmly. “What more can you tell us of that fortress?”

“ _Not much.”_ Modhri sounded apologetic. _“I was fascinated by them when I was still a trainee and did my best to study them in depth. Unfortunately, the records are very sparse, and Jedrenickans were very different from my kind—to start with, they breathed methane—so most of the internal systems generally wound up being ripped out and replaced in numerous, often non-standard ways. Drosh and Zaianne know more about that fort over there than I do.”_

“Lovely,” Allura grumbled. “Nonetheless, the plan stays the same. Pidge, are you ready?”

“Anytime, Allura!” Pidge said agreeably. “Just give me the signal.”

“Let's go, then!” Allura called to her Paladins, who responded with enthusiasm, the green Lion taking the lead and zooming on ahead.

Pidge knew the distance her Lion could cover while cloaked, and had calculated her timing well. While her fellow Paladins drew the guardian fleets away from the fort, she struck invisibly, setting her Lion down on the surface. With a grunt of effort, she got a feel of the place and the scent of the AI, and then unleashed her own special code into its electronics. She felt her Lion amplifying her powers, giving her the strength to complete this mission without further loss to her own reserves; Pidge realized that the green Lion was acting as a powerload in this. She could draw on that mighty core as though it were a reserve battery. Pidge wondered vaguely if Zarkon had drawn too much before the black Lion had rejected him all those years ago, and then turned her mind to more current matters. She'd delivered her packet, and now it was time to go and help the others.

 

Hunk grinned broadly when the green Lion reappeared on the screens, and her voice over his comm telling them that she'd succeeded. Shouts of encouragement and congratulations cascaded from the others and the support ships alike, and then Allura called for Voltron to assemble. Hunk complied, making the necessary adjustments to the controls and feeling the hot rush as the Lions came together. It was all but instinctive now, the great gestalt engine moving more at the command of their minds than their hands. He could feel the others acting in concert around him as they smashed ship after ship. Some part of him mourned those crushed and burning hulks; people were dying over there, and he was killing them. Escape pods spewed from the dying ships, but he knew that they wouldn't be carrying the full crews.

_They have made their choice,_ his Lion told him, and he shared a fleeting memory of a time—many times—where his own Lion's scattergun had mown down escape pods as readily as it had blown apart fighters. War was a monster that demanded sacrifice from all sides; it was his life or theirs, and there was no other answer but to fight. Hunk knew full well what the Galra armies had done to others, past and present, and he knew that if he were to stop them, he had to make that choice as well.

_We can't save them all,_ the Lion said, and Hunk felt the sorrowing of his predecessors in the Lion's memory.

_I know,_ he told it, remembering that overheard conversation between Allura and Lizenne, when the witch had dropped the hard truth directly on the Princess's head.  _I know, but we can do as little damage as possible this time around. Let's crack this fort and see if we can't take back some of what they stole._

After a time, the fleet was destroyed and Voltron was victorious, the Lions disengaging in preparation to storm the station itself. It was strangely draining, almost a letdown after that unified experience. The Lion comforted him, gave him strength, and rallied his spirits.

“How are we doing down there, Pidge?” he heard Lance call to his teammate.

“The AI's mine,” Pidge replied with considerable satisfaction. “It's telling me that most of the troops who lived in it were on the ships we just wrecked. There's some kind of Very Important Visitor there right now, and he wanted no unessential crew on board while he was there. I'm trying to tell it to herd whoever's left over to the escape pods and get them out of there, but it's having trouble understanding that. Drosh was right, guys, that AI really isn't very smart. It's just about bright enough to run the utilities, so long as nobody does their laundry and washes the dishes at the same time.”

Hunk laughed at that. “Yeah, that happened to me once. I was working a summer job at a lunch-and-dinner place a few years ago, and the manager had been saving money by running maintenance on the electronics himself, even though he wasn't any good at it. Oh, all the equipment worked okay if you didn't run too much of it at the same time, but if you were running the big mixer and someone started up the deep-fryer, everything went haywire. The owner had a few things to say to him when the dishwasher started firing serving platters at the customers' heads if they got too close to the kitchen, and I'm not even going to mention what the microwave did when we tried to thaw out frozen fish fillets!”

“Swordfish went right through the walls, huh?” Lance asked.

“No, that was the orange roughy,” Hunk said. “The swordfish hit the ceiling and kept on going. They had to put in a skylight. Local news thought it was pretty cool, but the neighbors complained.”

“I'll bet,” Keith said. “Care to open the doors for us, Pidge?”

“Yeah, sure, give me a moment.” Pidge said, sounding slightly distracted. “The AI's a little confused right now. Somebody in the control center is trying to take it away from me without actually having to shut it down. They don't dare do that, since if the AI crashes, so does life-support. Not gonna happen. Come on sweetie, open up...”

One of the fighter bays yawned open invitingly, allowing the Paladins entry, along with Lizenne and the two Blades in pod ships. “We're in,” Allura told Coran and Modhri, “Pidge has control of the AI. We will clear the station and locate the Quintessence stockpile; Modhri, are you ready to begin loading?”

“ _Standing by,”_ Modhri replied. _“The_ Chimera's _drones are ready to act at your word, Princess.”_

“Good. Coran, do we have an audience?”

“ _No, Princess,”_ Coran reported. _“All of the lifepods have gone and the colony over there doesn't seem to have noticed anything. The station didn't have time to get a distress signal out, but we shouldn't dawdle, just in case one of those ships managed to get a signal off. I'll alert you if anything pops in.”_

“Good,” Allura said, and dismounted her Lion.

The others were already out and standing around Pidge, who had pulled out a portable screen and had brought up a map of the station. It was a surprisingly straightforward structure, although parts of it seemed to be missing. Some of the rooms held bright green dots. Pidge nodded at her and pointed to portions of the image. “The command center's here,” she said, indicating the room with the most dots in it. “We'll want to get that room cleared out first thing before somebody in there does something dumb. There are a few others floating around, probably techs and maintenance guys. I think that these blank spots are the core and drive rooms, but it's possible that the Quintessence is stashed in there, too; there may or may not be anyone in there. There are a few more people over here, but since that's the detention block, they shouldn't be too unhappy to leave. Other than that, the house is empty.”

“Where are the lifepods?” Zaianne asked.

“Here. Next bay over, actually.” Pidge made that section of the image blink on and off, and then a neighboring section glowed a bright green, with eight red dots clustered within it. “We're here. Most of the pods are still in their bays and ready to go, so try not to knife too many of those guys, okay?”

Drosh chuckled. “Only the ones who won't go quiet, I promise. I'll take the command center. Anyone want to come with?”

“I'll come,” Zaianne said with a thin smile. “Lance? We might need some backup.”

“Sure,” Lance said, drawing his bayard.

Allura nodded. “Keith, Hunk, and I will run sweeps and round up those stragglers. The ones in detention can wait until after we've seen to the loose ones. Lizenne and Pidge will locate the stockpile.” She paused, reflecting that even with the station nearly empty, they made for a very small raiding party. “Do you think you'll be all right on your own?”

Lizenne grinned fiercely and tapped the butt of her bone spear on the floor. “I should be asking you that. Go carefully, and beware; I smell Druid here.”

Lance gave her a confident smirk. “That's okay. We know how to deal with those, now.”

“Right,” Keith said, “let's go. Keep in touch, Pidge, I don't want anyone getting lost in here.”

“Can do. I've got the stockpile key, so if anyone sees a weird lock before I do, tell me.”

“Gotcha.”

The teams split up and headed toward their assigned destinations.

 

Clearing the halls was surprisingly easy, Keith thought as he watched Allura explain the current situation to the whimpering janitor that she was currently sitting on. Voltron's surprise attack and quick victory seemed to have totally demoralized everyone left in the fort, not that they'd had much backbone to begin with. Quite aside from the fact that this place was where all the lowest-grade personnel wound up and that the Commander was an abusive maniac, the visiting VIP had made them all very nervous. The janitor gave them no trouble at all when Allura let him up, and allowed himself to be marched back to the cabin where they'd been stashing their prisoners.

“Got another one, Pidge,” he reported through the helmet 'link. “Any more near here?”

“Two,” her voice came clearly in his ears. “There's one hiding in the mess hall kitchen, and another lurking in the restroom. Careful, they might be armed. Lance, how are you and the Blades doing?”

“We've found Central Command, but they've locked the door,” Lance said, sounding a little annoyed. “Manual locks, I think. One of those guys stepped out as we were coming up the hall and saw us, and now they don't want to play. Drosh and Zaianne are looking for another way in.”

There was a pause. “Try going up a level. There's a service duct to the ventilation system that looks big enough for you to get in through the ceiling. Yeah. Third door on the left from the lift. I've just unlocked it for you.”

“Drop the Commander first, if you can,” Hunk added. “He's not a popular guy, and knocking him out will probably get you a round of applause.”

“I'm always up for an accolade,” Lance said agreeably.

“We know,” Pidge replied. “Allura, you and Keith had better get going, the one in the bathroom's on the move and heading... oh, that's convenient, he's heading right for you. Looks like he's hoping to get to the pods.”

“What about the one in the kitchen?” Keith asked.

“Staying put. Maybe he's found the sausages,” Pidge said with a giggle. “Hunk, you can raid the fridge _after_ we've got the Quintessence.”

“Awww.” Hunk protested.

Keith cast him an amused look. “How are you two doing?”

“We've found the parts warehouse, and it's a mess,” Pidge said, “they've got it all stuffed anyhow into the old drive section, which looks like it hasn't been active since King Arthur was looking for round-table candidates. We're heading for the core compartment now, but we're taking it slow. There's a Druid here, Keith. Even I can smell it now, but it's keeping out of sight. It doesn't show up on my map—the AI can't see it either, and Lizenne's not having any luck pinpointing its location.”

“We'll keep an eye out for it,” Keith answered.

They didn't find the Druid, but they found the last two loose Galra. The one who'd struck out for the pod bay was a repair technician who surrendered the moment that he discovered that that was an option, and the one in the kitchen didn't need capturing at all. He hadn't found the sausages, but he had located the cook's secret stash of booze, and was so drunk on horath that he could barely walk.

“I can't believe that your mom drinks this stuff,” Hunk told Keith while propping the sagging soldier up, “it smells like malted lighter fluid.”

“She doesn't drink it,” Keith replied, scanning around for Druids, “not unless she really has to. “It's good for cleaning wounds, starting fires, disinfecting surfaces, and polishing her knife.”

The soldier hiccuped and grinned hugely. “Good for cleaning enginesh, too,” he giggled, “an' poshlishin' drive coils. Gotta hold y'r breath, though, or th' fumes'll make you squiffy!”

Hunk wished that this guy would hold his breath. As it was, he could loosen a rusty lug nut just by huffing on it. “Yeah, and I bet it puts a polish on your guts, too.”

“Oh, yeah,” the soldier chortled. “Both liversh're sho sparkly right now, I don' need a nightlight. Need 'em that way. Damn Druid shneakin' around, getting itsh shadowinesh all over everythin', it doeshn't like how shparkly horath makesh you inshide, an' it don't drain you dry. I sheen 'em do it coupla timesh. It washn't nishe.”

“We'll keep that in mind,” Allura said, pausing by the holding room door.

“You a nishe girl,” the soldier slurred blearily, “what you doin' in thish plashe? No place for a woman, not with that crazy _holoph..._ uh... _holmshph..._ uh... _hoolphmiff..._ that crazy bashtard runnin' it. Shure'sh hell not good for that other poor lady. Or her man. Bad, bad thingsh gonna happen to 'em, 'caushe he gonna... he gonna...”

The soldier slumped against Hunk's shoulder and began to snore. Hunk grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “What other lady?” he demanded, but the Galra was out like a light and probably wouldn't sober up for a week.

“They're probably in the detention block, if they're anywhere,” Allura said, opening the door. “We'll find them.”

Hunk nodded and shoved the unconscious drunk into the arms of his fellows, who watched him nervously. “Just a little longer and then you can go, guys,” Hunk told them reassuringly, then shut the door and locked it.

Keith nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, that's the last of the stragglers, Pidge. We're going to go and see if Lance needs any help. Still looking around down there?”

“This place is a gadgeteer's paradise,” Pidge said, and was interrupted by a distant but very loud sneeze. “Most of which hasn't been dusted in ages. We haven't found either the Druid or the stockpile, and Lizenne's starting to get annoyed about that. Especially about the Druid. They really offend her for some reason.”

“I can relate,” Allura said. “Stay vigilant, Pidge, and tell us immediately if you see it.”

“I will.”

 


	11. Grand Theft Starbase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kokochan: This chapter happened because Hunk needed some fun too. I wish the show would showcase his engineering talents more.  
> Spanch: Producers, diss not the mad tech!  
> Kokochan: What she said.

Chapter 11: Grand Theft Starbase

 

Some days, Lance thought to himself, it paid to be the skinniest person on the team. While Zaianne wasn't much broader than he was, she was much taller and the low ceiling was giving her some difficulty. Drosh, while he was slightly shorter than Lance, he was considerably wider, and from the sound of the soft cussing behind him, had gotten stuck again. There was a grunt, a groan of metal paneling being bent back forcibly out of the way, and the cussing stopped. In the meantime, Lance listened carefully and triangulated in on the distant sounds of someone having a psychotic break. Oops, and some of that breakage wasn't just mental. There was a loud crash, and someone screamed in pain. Lance pushed himself as quickly as he could through the narrow passages until he found a wide grate set into the floor. Through it, he saw the wreckage of a large table, among which lay a groaning soldier. A much larger individual reached down with a thick hand, lifted the stricken man by the throat and roared something furious and mostly incoherent.

Drosh grunted in distaste. “Golrazi,” he grumbled over the noise. “Mad as a bag of clams. You're the sharpshooter, boy?”

“That's me,” Lance said with what he thought might be becoming modesty, “best shot on the team.”

“Good. Use it. Those louts down there have guns, and I don't like being shot at.” Tusklike teeth glinted in the dim light before his mask coalesced over his face. “I'll pull the lid off. You make us some space.”

“Gotcha.” Lance said, shifting so that he had a good vantage point that wouldn't interfere with the two Blades' aim and lying down on the floor.

Drosh reached down and gripped the grate carefully, then yanked it out of its moorings in one powerful heave that sent bolts flying. Cries of alarm sounded from below, although Lance didn't have time to shoot; a pair of huge hands gripped the sides of the vent, and a very large and extremely angry head came up through the opening, fangs bared and yellow eyes totally mad. Lance hit it as hard as he could with the butt of his bayard instead. The head vanished back through the vent, closely followed by both Drosh and Zaianne; Lance got a grip on himself and sighted through the opening, firing short blasts at every weapon he could see. There was a bellow from below that rose to a strangled screech, and then silence.

“Surrender,” he heard Zaianne say in a deadly voice that he barely recognized as hers, and when he looked down, he realized with a shudder that the fort's commander was no longer a problem and never would be again. “Surrender and live; we are not interested in you. Resist us, and you will die.”

Lance looked around for more intact weapons, didn't see any and dropped down, managing not to land in the spreading pool of red-purple ooze. “A... a Paladin?” he heard someone gasp.

“Yeah,” he said grimly, trying to ignore the mess on the floor. “Drop your guns if you've still got any, and open the door. We'll escort you to the pod bays. Yes, we're letting you live, so long as you don't try anything stupid. You really don't want to still be here when it's time for us to leave. There's still that Druid wandering around the place, too, by the way. We'll be dealing with that, unless you want to do the honors.”

The soldiers looked at each other, and then at the cold blue gazes of the two masked Marmorans, their swords at the ready, and at Lance, who was not in a good mood. Six guns hit the floor, one man unlocked the doors, and two more picked up their wounded fellow. “Lead on,” one of them sighed, raising his hands in the air.

They met Allura and the others on the way back to the pod bays, which only subdued the soldiers further, and it was the work of a few more minutes to get not only that batch of prisoners, but the first one out and away. Hunk heaved a sigh of relief to see them go, and then cast a sly smile at Keith. “Can I raid the fridge now?” he asked.

“It'll have to wait, Hunk,” Pidge said through their comms. “We've found the stockroom. Lizenne's pretty sure that the Druid's in there with the stash, and if it is in there, we're going to need you. If it's taken a sip from one of the containment units, it's going to come out blasting. Have you gotten everyone out?”

“Everyone except the detention block,” Keith said, “I figure that they can wait until we've dealt with the Druid. Where are you?”

“We're on the lowest level, so head for the nearest lift. I'll guide you from there.”

 

It took longer than it should have to reach their teammates; not because they got lost, but because they kept having to haul Hunk away from the treasure. Well, _he_ called it treasure. Everyone else called it junk, and there were literally tons of it, room after room of it, piled in untidy heaps all over the floor. Some of it was labeled, some of it had been color-coded so long ago that the colors had faded almost entirely away, but most of it was unidentifiable except as machine parts. At last, however, they came to what appeared to be a blank wall in the back of a roomful of miscellaneous scrap, where Pidge was sitting on an old rocket booster and fiddling with her computer.

“Where's Lizenne?” Allura asked.

Pidge pointed upwards with one finger. Sure enough, there was a golden-eyed gargoyle lurking atop a nearby scrap-pile. “She wants the height advantage for this one, and I don't blame her. It's in there, all right. Shall I open the door?”

Her teammates fanned out instantly, the two Blades taking up positions on the scrap heaps on either side of the door. “Do it,” Allura said.

Pidge put her computer aside, and then slid the key into a ring-shaped recess in the wall. Blue lines lanced out from the key, strange symbols around it shimmering briefly purple before turning azure. The wall split vertically, and Keith beheld a familiar golden glow; he'd seen this sort of thing once before, although he got only a glimpse of the big cylindrical jars before something dark and furious boiled out of the room beyond. It came to a halt before them, five-eyed mask searching around like a monstrous raven until its gaze rested upon Keith in particular. _“You!”_ it barked in a voice like a wire brush being smacked across a section of sheet iron, and raised clawed hands to attack.

Keith sprang out of the way of the blast; this was the same Druid he'd fought before, that had come all too close to killing him. This time, however, he was not alone, and was ready for it. He felt the pulse of its power along his nerves, even as Allura darted forward to catch the burst of raw energy that might have blasted him to pieces; she flared with rosy light and sent the bolt back. The Druid screeched in surprise and vanished in a cloud of mist, teleporting away, a move that did it no good. The others were already turning to face the spot where it came out a half-second later, and it was forced to scramble mightily to avoid Lizenne's sudden attack from above. They acted as one, harrying the creature from all sides, refusing to let it fire another bolt of energy. They forced it into a defensive strategy almost at once, the taller fighters lashing at its head and arms while the shorter ones slashed at its legs, both whirling away to allow Hunk and Lance clear shots at whatever they could hit. All of them tracked it with increasing ease whenever it teleported away, and they noticed that it was not used to this sort of fight. The Druid was accustomed to being able to confuse and frighten its foes with its powers of teleportation; in its frustration, it was spending its strength more and more sloppily, each transition almost audible now to its attackers. No witch nor ordinary person had ever presented this creature with a real challenge before, and it simply did not know how to deal with it.

Keith tracked its movements, moving with the creature, seeing its pattern coming as clear as the messages on a billboard. It vanished with a snap that rang his nerves like a bell, and he felt the answering pulse over— _there—_ and moved to meet it; when it reappeared, it did so too late to avoid his sword point. The Druid seemed to fold up around the blade, screaming in shock before exploding in a cloud of foul-smelling mist.

“Well done!” Lizenne called exultantly, “Well done, all of you! It is dead, and will come no more to annoy us.”

Hunk sank down panting on a lump of salvage and waved a salute at her. “Yeah. Thanks, O revered teacher, and all that jazz. It really works.”

“Guys, check this out,” Lance said, peering into the room beyond. “That's a lot of Quintessence.”

There had to be over a hundred jars in the stockroom, each one locked into a sturdy rack that lined the walls clear up to the ceiling. A smaller rack held shards of a starry blue substance that Keith had seen only briefly once before.

Zaianne stepped forward, her expression murderous. “Each containment unit comprises a world's worth of pure life force,” she murmured, “the blue ones are the concentrated and purified form, most often used to create Robeasts. Will the dragons be able to take on so much all at once, Lizenne?”

Lizenne shook her head, staring in horror at the sheer number of jars. “Not mine alone. We'd have to ask them to ask the greater pack for help. They'll do it, I guarantee you that, but it may take some time to finish such a project. And there are other stockpiles.”

Allura waved a hand sharply. “First, we must remove them from this place. Pidge?”

“I can't do it,” Pidge said in a strained voice. “These locks aren't electronic, and I don't have the right keys. If we try cutting them out of the racks, we're going to wind up breaking the jars, and we don't have enough time to try picking the locks. Sorry guys, I can't help you here.”

“What? We went to all this trouble, only to lose the whole thing?” Lance said indignantly. “Cripes, some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.”

“We're not going to lose the whole thing,” Hunk said, surprising everyone with a huge grin. “We're just going to have to steal the whole thing. This used to be a _mobile_ fort, right? That means it had to have a drive, and a computer smart enough to take it where it needed to go. I think that I can rebuild the drive. How 'bout that computer, Pidge?”

On firmer ground, Pidge grabbed for her own computer. “The current AI's not smart enough,” she said grimly, “it's still going over the video footage of our fight just now and making the cybernetic equivalent of 'herp-derp-derp' noises. It's not going to be able to handle starflight.”

“But it used to, or there used to be an AI on this thing that could,” Hunk said. “Can you find it... or write your own?”

She stared at him in amazement for a long moment, then tapped furiously at her keyboard. “I think... I think, maybe I can. If there's an old stardrive in these piles, we may be able to, and... yes! I can see the ghost.”

“Ghost?” Lance quavered.

“What's left of the original AI. No matter how thoroughly you erase a computer, bits and pieces of the original programming hang on. There may be enough left to put something useful together.”

“Yes!” Hunk said, and turned big bright eyes on the others. “Can I steal a fort, guys, huh? Can I? I'm pretty sure that I had a birthday recently, can I have a starbase for my birthday?”

Lance vented a whoop of laughter. “You sound like my cousin whenever he brought home another stray puppy.” His voice strained up a few octaves into a ridiculous old-lady falsetto. “Yes, you can keep it, Hunk, but you'll have to walk it and feed it and clean up after it.”

“Cool! I need a toolkit, and to find where the original drive was,” Hunk exulted when no one objected. “Pidge, did you see anything like that?”

Pidge shrugged, but Lizenne nodded, indicating an area off to their right with her bone spear. “Back thataway a room or two, there was an installation that had that sort of look to it. Have at it, children, and have fun. If nothing else, we can pass this hulk off to the Olkari for refurbishment, who then might pass it over to the Blades. You folks could use a roving fort, couldn't you?”

Drosh grinned cheerfully and bowed to her. “Always, m'Lady, if yon mad tech is willing to give it over.”

“I get to play with it first, it's mine!” Hunk said sternly. “Come on, Pidge, let's see if we can get this hulk moving again.”

“I'll help,” Drosh said, flexing his thick arms. “You'll need someone to do the heavy lifting, anyway.”

Lizenne watched the three of them head out with a smile, then turned to Allura. “If we're going to be making off with the whole craft, then we need no dead weight. I'm going to see what the detention block is holding, and release the prisoners.”

“I'll help with that,” Keith said, and Lance and Allura also were willing.

Zaianne, on the other hand, gestured a quick negative. “Drosh and I left a bit of a mess in the command center. I'll clean that up, then rejoin you at the prison block. If those three do manage to get this thing moving again, we're going to need that room, and it's so tedious to have to step over a corpse all the time.”

“Corpse?” Keith asked.

Zaianne shrugged. “The station's former commander was from Golraz Beta, and was having a mental breakdown. Golrazi, when they go insane, cannot be cured of it. He was trying to gut Drosh with his bare hands and had already severely injured one of his own men. He was no loss to the universe, believe me.”

Keith nodded slowly. She was Galra, he reminded himself, and an elite warrior in an order of elite warriors. The commander was not her first kill, nor would he be the last. He himself had just put down a Druid, which had once been an ordinary person. He took a deep breath to center himself. “We'll be waiting for you.”

She smiled, then vanished into the heaps of scrap.

 

The detention block was little different from any other one that they'd seen so far, being a long dim corridor fronted with forbidding doors. Several of them were open, showing the bare interiors; Galra didn't see any point in allowing their prisoners any comforts at all. “How many prisoners are there?” Allura asked, looking those grim portals over worriedly.

“Eight. One person per cell,” Lizenne replied. “Surprisingly few, really, and we shouldn't assume that the inmates here are nice people. Given the nature of this place and its commander, it's more likely that we have some very ripe characters in here. Weapons at the ready, lady and gentlemen, I'm going to open the first cell.”

The first prisoner was a Galra soldier, and he came out of his cell in a snarling rush, intent on tearing his captors to pieces. This lasted all of two seconds, for he tripped over the haft of Lizenne's bone spear and went sprawling face-first onto the floor. He had the good sense to stop struggling, at least, when he felt her foot come down on his shoulders and the edge of her spearhead touch the back of his neck. “Manners,” she scolded gently, “that's not the way you greet a potential rescuer. This weapon can slice through your neck vertebrae without more than a few pounds of pressure, by the way. Care to tell us why you were so upset?”

“Commander was gonna space me, he said,” the soldier grunted. “For looking at him funny. Why me? _Everyone_ does that, he's crazy. What're you gonna do?”

“Space you,” Lance said cheerfully, “but we're going to put you in an escape pod first if you do what you're told, okay?”

The soldier gave Lance's ankles a suspicious look. “Then he's gonna shoot my pod.”

Keith snorted. “No he won't. He's dead.”

“Dead? He's too crazy to be dead!” the soldier yelped, groping clumsily at Lizenne's foot. “Death-God Kuphorosk takes one look at people like that and walks away, and He don't come back until something really permanent happens to 'em!”

Lance squatted down to look the frightened soldier in the eye. “How about two angry Blades of Marmora? Is that permanent enough?”

The soldier choked. “B... Blades? You're friends with the _Blades?”_

“Yup,” Lance grinned.

“I'll be good,” the soldier said in a very small voice.

Lizenne chuckled. “Yes, you will. Now sit there and be good or I shall have to chase you down the hall and stab you to death, and I do not want to have to do that. Have you any idea of who else is in these cells?”

The soldier, feeling her foot, and more importantly, the spearpoint, leave his back, pulled himself into a sitting position. He was quite young, with the gangling look that some young men have when they're just past the last round of growth spurts and haven't filled out yet. “Some,” he admitted meekly, “couple guys in for fighting, couple in for stealing, one cook for making a really bad batch of ghrench. Commander said he'd poisoned it, and wasn't far wrong. Don't know 'bout the last two, but they were special somehow. Some bigshot was coming, and Commander was gonna make a gift of 'em. I think one of them's a lady.”

“Yes, one of your fellows mentioned that,” Allura said grimly. “That 'bigshot' may have been the Druid.”

The soldier cringed, eyes going wide. “Not good. People who get given to those don't ever come back! It ain't still here, is it?”

“It's dead, too,” Keith said. “We're going to let the others out now, and then we'll take you all to the pod bay. We've taken control of the fort and don't really need you guys hanging around.”

“All right,” the soldier said glumly. “Never wanted to be a soldier, anyway.”

Before long, their captive had company on the floor. The two who had been detained for fighting were not feeling belligerent enough to argue with three armed Paladins or Lizenne's spear, and neither were the two charged with theft. The cook, however, complained bitterly about the rough treatment he'd been given, to which his fellow inmates responded with derision; he was apparently the all-time galactic champion for making really bad sausages. Lizenne paused outside of the last two cells, however, glaring at the objects hung up by the doors: two lengths of heavy cord, with a snap on one end and a loop on the other. Lance peered curiously at those. “Leashes?”

“The fort's Commander was Golrazi,” Lizenne said darkly. “It's a harsh world, and they don't permit aliens there unless they have a Galra owner. Any non-Galra found to be in violation of local law is executed immediately. Any Galra who commits a crime of significance there, however, is enslaved and made to wear a collar. They tend not to live long. It seems that the Druid, if that was the bigshot that our friend over there was speaking of, would have gone home with a couple of pets.”

“That's disgusting!” Allura exclaimed.

“That's the Golrazi,” Lizenne rebutted. “They are perhaps the harshest of the Galran peoples, and their relation to the Emperor has only encouraged that. Frankly, I can't stand to be near the breed. Be glad that they're not particularly numerous beyond their own home orbits.”

Keith put his hand to one touchplate, making the nearer door slide open. Inside was a middle-aged Galra man in a slave's bodysuit and smock, huddled in a corner with his arms bound behind his back and a heavy-looking collar around his neck. He'd also been blindfolded, which caused Lizenne to frown. He cringed away when she approached him, too, and whimpered at her touch. “Before I take this off,” she said, hand poised on the cloth, “has anyone been rubbing your ears?”

“No,” he said in a shaking whisper. “No. Commander Varkos did this. He said that the next thing I saw would be the Druid taking Sarell away. Please, I beg of you, is she still here? Don't let it take her, please, she's going to give birth soon, don't let it take the cubs!”

Lizenne made a sound in her throat like a large angry wildcat. “Keith!” she barked, and the Paladin rushed to open the last cell. Lizenne heard a low, aching moan from there that made her grind her teeth. Standing up abruptly, she stepped out of the cell and fixed their six captives with a furious glare that silenced them mid-argument and made them go very still. “Lance, Keith, you will take these men to the pod bays and send them on their way. Boys, you will not give these two gents so much as a moment's trouble on the way. Am I clear?”

Lizenne was furious, her voice had murder dripping off of it, and the six Galra knew that their lives depended on their ability to follow simple orders right now. “Yes, m'Lady,” they chorused meekly, and went along without a fight.

Lizenne watched them go, then strode into the last cell, where Allura was trying to comfort the occupant, who was lying crumpled on her side. She'd been bound as well, although Allura had already cut the cuffs and collar off, and was in considerable distress, panting in harsh breaths, eyes wide and glassy. They'd put her in a loose gray tunic that hung off of her body in a worrying way, although the swell of her belly nearly filled the midsection. Lizenne laid a hand on her abdomen and concentrated for a moment. “She's been delaying the birth,” Lizenne said quietly, “and is nearly spent. Allura, do you still have any leftover energy from that Druid?”

Allura, feeling lost and anxious, took off her gauntlets; there was still a rosy flush around the fingernails. “A little.”

“Good,” Lizenne said, holding out her free hand. “Channel it through me. I'll purify it and give it to her. They haven't treated her at all well, poor thing, and if she doesn't get proper care soon, we may lose both her and the cubs.”

Allura took her hand and tried to concentrate on the hot bright place below her heart where the residual power from the Druid had lodged. It flowed out with ease, and she had the peculiar sensation of pouring it out of her body as though it were water. Lizenne took a deep breath, and when she let it go, a faint plume of dark mist wafted out into the air and dissipated. The woman on the floor gasped, blinked, and swallowed painfully, seeming to see them for the first time. “My husband,” she whispered faintly, “please...”

Lizenne nodded. “He's still here, and alive. Allura, free and fetch him please, he must help me with this. Then go see if you can find some clean water and blankets, and if you see Zaianne, tell her what is happening. She will know what to do. If you knock into the boys again, tell them to get down to where Hunk is working and help him however they can. We aren't going to be able to move this young mother until she's done birthing. He _must_ get this station mobile before the enemy arrives!”

Allura jumped up and darted away, and a moment later Sarell's man stumbled into the cell and fell to his knees by his Lady's side. Lizenne let them embrace and comfort each other for a few minutes before applying a little more encouragement to the woman's overburdened body. Zaianne came in a little time later with a large bucket of water, an armload of reasonably clean blankets and cloths, a flask of horath, and a grim expression.

“Good,” Lizenne said, reaching for the bucket. “Where's Allura?”

“Chasing Khaeth and Lance back down to the drive section,” Zaianne said, nodding reassuringly at the frightened-looking man. “She'll be back in a minute with any food from the kitchen that doesn't look too vile. How is she?”

“Weak, but the cubs are still viable,” Lizenne said, giving the panting woman a drink from the bucket before spreading out one of the blankets and popping the stopper off of the flask. “I'll probably need to ask you to lend her your strength soon.”

“She has it,” Zaianne promised.

“Thank you. All right, my dear, it's time that those little ones met the universe.” Lizenne poured some of the horath onto a clean cloth, winced slightly at the sting as she wiped her hands with that rough-and-ready disinfectant, and laid both hands on the gravid woman's belly. “Relax now...”

 

Hunk was having more fun than was strictly legal. The fort's drive was ancient, crusted with the grime of centuries of neglect, broken in at least sixteen spots, had been used as a clandestine distillery at least twice, and he loved every inch of it already. Replacement parts weren't a problem; even though there was no chance of finding any of the factory-standard stuff to fix the thing, he was swimming in a sea of things that could be made to fit, and even to upgrade parts of it. Drosh had already dragged over a pile of promising hardware, and it filled Hunk's heart with joy to see the fort's engine come back to life under his hands. Drosh had also found him seven different toolboxes, and he now sat at the epicenter of a vast sprawl of useful things, pulling apart systems from a dozen different technologies and pulling out the treasure from therein. He could _feel_ how it all went together, and all he had to do was find the parts that felt right and slide them in. The fact that none of those parts were shaped right to fit into those slots until he touched them didn't dawn on him until much later. Drosh noticed this but didn't comment on it. He knew better than to disrupt a mage with trivialities.

Pidge sat nearby on the wreckage of an old Birvinian war-golem, trying to resurrect the original AI that had run the fort. The crippled electronic dimwit that was currently performing the task was not taking it well, unfortunately, and she was so busy trying to keep it from choking on the new data that she barely noticed when Lance and Keith arrived. There were bits and scraps of numerous AI's, actually, flapping around the data banks like bats. Of the original, there was only the basic structure left, but those bones were still good enough to hang logic blocs on. It had been a very simple and straightforward thing, but that had made it strong enough to last. Others had been smarter, but not as stable; Most of those had only lasted a few decades before being replaced by still others, most of which had had no sense of humor at all, and those had in turn been replaced by a series of rush-jobs put together by someone who hadn't had the budget to hire a really good programmer. The most recent AI had managed the fort's functions well, but with an assortment of quirks and idiosyncrasies that had gotten it lobotomized on at least six separate occasions, the last time, apparently, with a hammer. Pidge pulled the fragments together with care, refining and cleaning up what she could and erasing what was incurably corrupt, and writing new code to fill in the holes.

“Come on, sweetie, we're almost there,” she murmured to it at one point, loading in a series of changes that hopefully would increase its IQ a little. “Does that make it any easier?”

_Herpeduh_? It said.

She sighed. What she really needed was a reasonably intact example to clean up and merge with this thing, but she didn't know if there was one of those around. Pidge frowned at the screen and tried again. “How about that?”

_Hoopabog!_ The crippled AI burbled.  _Philonanda hoopabog!_

“Nope. Come on, there has to be something usable in here. Let's try this.”

_Meepatoon? Morpaturn? Megatron?_

Pidge snorted. “At least you're trying. Sheesh, that commander guy must have had six or seven men up at all hours doing what you're supposed to be doing, and couldn't. I need a break.”

_Gloot gloot!_

Pidge stood up and stretched, watching Keith and Lance helping Drosh wrestle a chunk of something complex down off of a pile of similar trash and haul it over to Hunk, who dug in immediately. “Where are the others?” she asked them.

Lance rolled a sore shoulder. “Helping a couple of the prisoners have a baby, I think. We got the rest out of the fort, but we're going to have to keep the last two for a while. Either way, we've gotta get this place moving, and fast. How's it going on your end?”

“Not very well. The AI's been so badly stripped that there's hardly anything usable left. I need something that hasn't been hit repeatedly with a blunt object to rebuild it, and I don't even know what to look for.” Pidge waved her hands at the mountains of scrap all around them. “Drosh, what does an alien AI look like from the outside?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Drosh rumbled, then turned to Hunk. “Hey, mad tech, we got a spare ship's brain anywhere in this mess?”

Hunk blinked up at them distractedly and looked around, his nerves tingling with awareness of the hardware around him. “Over there,” he said, pointing at a tangle of cables, “that feels like logic circuitry. Drosh, I'm gonna need another of those dankurosh arrays, if you can find one. If not, that sort of bent red thing over there will do.”

Together, Pidge, Lance, and Keith managed to disentangle a roughly cylindrical object from a pile of piping and hook it into one of the many half-drained power modules that Hunk had collected to run tests on his bits and pieces with, and fired it up. It came awake sluggishly, pushed at the safeguards that Pidge had loaded her own computer with, and said, _Oh, gods, they killed me!_ _Where are my thrusters? I can't feel my thrusters! Is this the afterlife?_

“Well, at least you're coherent,” Pidge said, checking it for degradation and finding very little. To her surprise, it was not only intact, but self-aware, much like her Lion was. “You're not dead, just disconnected. What did you do for a living?”

_I was a warship, of course. A Vontakle Privateer. Ugrant Class, I'm afraid, but it could've been worse. Last thing I remember is being boarded by hostiles, and then everything went dark. Where's the rest of me?_

“In bits all over the place,” Pidge said, running other checks that told her that this had indeed been what she was looking for. “Hey, Drosh? Have you ever heard of the Vontakles?”

“Hmm?” Drosh grunted, glancing quizzically at her. “Vontakles? Zarkon jumped up and down on 'em until they surrendered... oh, had to be something like eight or nine hundred years ago. They assimilated okay, and they're still making the best textiles in known space.”

Pidge turned back to her screen. “Sorry.”

Cronasp _,_ the AI swore.  _We lost? Even after winning all those battles, we still lost? And my noble creators are now famous for making cloth, of all things. What the_ belgium _was the High Admiral doing? If I wasn't stripped to my can, I would blow his cenotaph up myself. So, weird alien person, what are you going to do with me now?_

“I was thinking of loading you into an old Jedrenickan mobile fort that we're repairing,” Pidge said with a grin. “The current AI has the brains of a gerbil, and we could use your help.”

The screen was blank for a moment. _A Jedrenickan mobile fort. A_ real _Jedrenickan mobile fort? Those were legends, even in my heyday. Wait, wait, let me guess, it's coming to pieces, none of the guns work, and the shields are so badly underpowered that a hatchling could toss a smofball through them._

Pidge giggled. “It's not that bad. The guns and shields are fine and it's holding together okay, but the drive's dead and it hasn't gone anywhere in centuries. If you agree to help us out, you'll probably get a full refit, an upgrade, and a crew who'll take proper care of you.”

_You temptress, you._ The text paused, cursor blinking.  _This is a very strange interface we're using. Tastes like aetherics. You aren't Galra, are you?_

“Nope,” Pidge said, “Human. Want a look at your new hull?”

_Sure, why not? It's weird, but it feels nice. Sort of blue. Wow, you weren't joking about that native AI, were you? Lots of room to move around in there, but it's been maintained by an idiot._

“That's not its fault. Do you think you can merge and overwrite successfully? We really need to get going, and you'll be able to tell us more about the fort's systems than we can see.”

_I can, that'll be easy, but it's practically an illegal sex act. My creators had strong taboos against combining trait data with defectives, you know._

“It wasn't defective before someone took a mallet to its main logic core,” Pidge told it. “I've rebuilt what I could, but they didn't leave me much to work with. This is the only chance you'll get, pal.”

_Yeah, I get the picture. Since I don't really want to spend the next thousand years as a dormant doorstop, I'll go along with you on this. What were you planning to name the fort?_

Pidge shrugged. “They've been calling it _Auzorel._ ”

The cursor paused again. _No. Absolutely not. I refuse to go around with the same name as an item of sanitary furniture. Pick something better, or I quit._

Pidge had to quash a laugh. “Guys, I've got a working AI going here, but it wants a new name for the station. Apparently, _Auzorel_ means something like _toilet_ in Vontaklish _,_ and it refuses to go around being called the _Flying Flushman._ Got any better ideas?”

“How about _Lance of Justice?”_ Lance suggested with a haughty smile. “That'd be cool.”

“No, it wouldn't,” Keith disagreed. _“Garage of Lions_ wouldn't be any better, though.”

“'Garage of Lions'?” Pidge asked.

“We've already got the Castle.” Keith shrugged.

Drosh raised a hand. “Had a ship once called _Whetstone._ Good ship. Took a heavy cruiser to shoot it out from under me.”

“ _Clarence,”_ Hunk said firmly, fitting a knot of exotic metal into the drive. “Its name is _Clarence,_ after the guy at the bike shop who first taught me how to fix my scooter.”

“I remember that guy!” Lance said with a grin. “He had the best bikes and hoverscoots in the area, but he kept throwing me out of the shop.”

“You never bought anything and you kept making passes at his daughter,” Hunk said, reaching for a tool that might have had a screwdriver in its ancestry. “Of course he threw you out, and you're lucky that Linda wasn't helping him or they would have thrown you through the window. I'm gonna need a new plasma array. There's one of those over on the pile by the wall there, see it? The big gray thing with the glass tubes.”

“Think you can live with 'Clarence'?” Pidge asked the AI.

The cursor blinked a few times while the AI thought about it.  _It's similar to the name for a creature that was native to the homeworld of my builders. Not a particularly attractive beast, but well-known for being lucky. I can live with it. Upload me, boss._

“Gotcha. Hunk, I'm uploading Clarence into the computer core now,” Pidge called over to the busy engineer. “He'll be able to help us with diagnostics and things.”

“Cool,” Hunk replied. “Guys, I'm still waiting for that plasma array.”

She pressed a button on her keyboard; something inside the big canister of circuitry went  _wyzrp._ The lights flickered slightly and there was a faint cough from an old speaker set high on one wall.  _“Oh, hey, yeah, I can work with this,”_ Clarence's voice came as a slightly tinny tenor through the dusty device,  _“shabby in spots and abandoned in others, but there's real potential here. I can see my insystem jets and they're okay, but they've only seen use lately in correcting my orbit. Huh. I've got two power cores. Plenty of juice in the active one, but the other's been dry for ages. All right, who's been brewing horath in my drive coils?”_

“Wasn't me,” Hunk said, “I'm working on it.”

“ _I can see that. Nice work,”_ Clarence said appraisingly. _“Huh. That capacitor array isn't going to work, though. Power flows are all wrong.”_

“It'll be fine when I get this positronic reflector in, see?” Hunk said, altering a socket's diameter slightly and slotting it in. “There, how's that?”

“ _Sweet as a knoptic's thizzle. Aetheric as all_ tushwa _, but if it works, who cares?”_ There was a sigh from the speaker. _“All of us Ugrant-Class ships used to envy the AI's who got the big Alpek- and Sniddar-Class hulls, since they were the ones who rated the fancy aetheric systems. Partial or full bonds with the captains, nova-class weapons systems, teludav portal drives, self-cleaning kitchens, the works. Never thought that I'd get some of that. Hey, now why are you putting that in there?”_

“Feels right,” Hunk said, making some adjustments to the wiring, “It's like cooking, which I also do a lot of. If you know what you're doing, you can just do what feels right, and it usually comes out perfect. You just needed a little salt right here, is all. We'll spice you up some more, just as soon as that plasma array gets dragged over here. Lance?”

There was a sliding crash from the junkpile over by the door as the plasma array, which had been wedged firmly under an industrial press, came loose along with half of the rest of the heap. “We've got it!” Lance called breathlessly, “It was stuck, is all, and— _oh my god, there's a dead guy in here!”_

“Really?” Hunk said, not even looking up. “How old?”

Lance, Keith, and Pidge stared at him. Drosh hummed appraisingly. “Two hundred years, maybe three from the style of his armor. Looks like a bad batch of brew killed him.”

“Cool,” Hunk replied, “he can be the official ghost. All really old ships and forts have at least one, it's traditional. We'll build him a nice little tomb later, up in a corner so he's got a good view. Guys, I really need that plasma array.”

“Seriously?” Lance said in disbelief. “Hunk, there is a corpse lying here in this room, and you're thinking about keeping him?”

Hunk nodded. “Sure. I'm Samoan, Lance, remember? We've got a long tradition of guardian spirits, and this place needs all the help it can get. You okay with having a ghost around, Clarence?”

“ _Sure, if it doesn't get bored and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow or something,”_ the AI said conversationally. _“I heard once that the Thashine Holbunites used to sacrifice someone into every ship they made, just so that the craft would have an official ancestor spirit to protect the crew from curses and bad luck. Weird bunch, but absolute devils in a fight.”_

Drosh dragged the plasma array over and presented it to Hunk with a flourish, who nodded his thanks and began removing the tubes. “Sounds like you've had some personal experience.”

“ _Yeah. They were our allies before they sold out to the Galra. We weren't too friendly with them after that. By the way, I've been talking with the two other ships in the area, and they're telling me some pretty weird stories. Are you really a Paladin? I've got a Castle and a Lion bragging to me about you.”_

Hunk grinned up at the speaker and saluted with a wrench. “Yup, we're the genuine article, defenders of the universe and everything, or we will be once we really start getting our act together. Lance, Keith, and Pidge here are Paladins, too, and so's Allura. You okay with that?”

“ _Yes, even though some of those old tales aren't nice. The Lions say that even heroes are vulnerable to bad commanders, and I'm inclined to agree. Pidge,_ Chimera Rising _says that you can help me download fresh starcharts from her files. Do you mind? Mine are kind of out of date.”_

Pidge's fingers flew over her keyboard. “Sure, let me just set up the connection.”

Lance and Keith had remained standing on the junkheap, staring down at the sorry collection of bones and outmoded armor that lay at its ease on a dented sheet of armorplate, flask still clutched in one hand. Lance sat down on a defunct scanner drone with a sigh. “Sorry, dead guy, but it looks like you're being press-ganged. At least you'll be able to keep Clarence company, I suppose, and maybe someone can build you a little shrine so that they can bribe you with booze in return for favors.”

“Seriously, Lance?” Keith asked, giving him an odd look.

Lance waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Two of my Aunts do that for their favorite Saints. Aunt Lucia always gives hers a shot of tequila before she goes to the casino. It seems to work for her. She's never won big, but she's never lost big, either.”

“ _...sounds... good... to... me...”_ a faint, echoing voice murmured to them from floor level.

They stared at each other, looked down at the skeleton, looked up, and went away from there.

 

“Are you sure they'll be all right?” Allura asked softly as they made their way down to the engine deck. She was tired and emotionally drained, but triumphant nonetheless.

Lizenne was no less weary and had stains on her shirt that weren't going to come out any time soon, but her feeling of achievement was just as great. “She'll live, and we managed to save the cubs. Seven healthy boys and a vigorous little girl is a clutch to be proud of, and they need this time alone to bond. Zaianne will stay nearby and guard them from all harm.”

Allura cocked her a sidelong glance. “I would have thought that you'd be doing that.”

Lizenne shook her head. “I'm not a mother yet. New fathers are vulnerable, and their mates become all the more possessive of them during this time. She'd try to drive me off or kill me despite her condition. Zaianne's mate might be dead, but she has a son to look after, and I've given her my spear. That will have to be good enough.”

“What are we going to do with them, Lizenne?” Allura asked plaintively, “Sarell's so fragile right now, and the cubs just born, and Kolost is so shaken from nearly losing them that he can barely think.”

Lizenne smiled at her and patted her shoulder comfortingly. “First, we must escape with this fort. After that... well, we will have to shelter them for a time until we know what their situation truly is. Kolost never got around to telling us just why he and his family were locked in those cells. Modhri and I can bunk them in the _Chimera_ if you don't want them cluttering up the Castle. Galra cubs become mobile very quickly and are liable to get underfoot, and the girl-cubs are fierce and will bite.”

Allura cast her an amused look. “You're trying to keep them all for yourself, you greedy woman. I can tell.”

Lizenne vented a low laugh. “Caught. While I do not miss my family, I miss _having_ family. It... fills a need in me, to have cubs around. We're pack animals, remember, and solitude is not good for us. We shall share them, Allura, I promise, though I'll bet you two falls out of three that they'll bunk with us.”

“Not if I invite them into the Castle first,” Allura said primly. “My goodness, is that a skeleton?”

They had reached the engine room door now, and sure enough, a skeleton lay in state on a sheet of battleplate, a flask with a lily made from a piece of aluminum sheeting in it clasped in the gauntleted hands. Lance, who was sitting on a nearby piece of wreckage, waved at them. He looked tired, too, and his expression was a little strained. “Ladies,” he said, rising and giving them a grandiose bow, “may I introduce you to Clarence's official dead guy? Dead guy, meet Allura and Lizenne. Lizenne and Allura, meet dead guy. Cheers.”

Allura gave him a funny look. “Have you been sniffing horath?”

“I wish,” Lance said, pinching the bridge of his nose as though his head hurt. “He's the second dead guy I've seen today, thanks, and at least he's less offensive than the first, although he talks more. We've got an actual ghost here, and everyone's cool with that but me. I made him a lily. Traditional back home on Earth, though I don't know what Galra do with their dead. He seems to like it.”

Lizenne humphed curiously and bent down, moving the corpse's hands slightly to examine the flask and brushing the helmet lightly with her fingertips, leaving streaks on the dusty surface. “Ah. His name was Zerod and he was a bit of a rough character. Too lazy to be a real warrior, though, and had a powerful liking for home-brewed liquor. I get the feeling that he was bullied into joining the army by a frustrated uncle. Don't worry about him, Lance. If he gets a quiet little spot to rest in and the occasional grave offering, he'll be happy enough. How are the others doing?”

Lance sat back down on his wreckage with a clank. “Pretty well. Pidge has magicked us up a nice smart AI to run the place—that's Clarence, he's pretty cool—and Hunk's been doing impossible things with junk. All three of them have been keeping me, Drosh, and Keith busy with garbage picking. You've gotta go and see what he's building over there—it doesn't make any sense, but it looks like it's going to work.”

Allura and Lizenne shared a puzzled look and headed over to the room's center, where a strange glow was lighting up the junk piles. They had to stop and stare when they rounded the last heap. “By the Ancients,” Allura whispered, “what is that?”

“That” was a huge installation of flash and glitter that boggled the eyes, a passionate poem of sleek metal, shining crystal, and colored lights that seemed to sing paeans of joy for the sheer love of spaceflight. Tubes glowed as strange energies crackled back and forth, spheres hummed and spun, and the whole thing pulsed with power. As they watched, Hunk slid one last component into the central section, and the whole thing blazed with golden light for a moment before dying down into a steady luminescence. “Done,” Hunk said with considerable satisfaction. “What do you think, guys?”

“Everything's hooked up properly, and we've just confirmed the charts,” Pidge replied, rubbing at eyes that glittered briefly with starshine. “Clarence?”

“ _Ysaope, Yeoza, and Yeapya, but it's beautiful,”_ a voice said happily from the speakers. _“I can go_ anywhere _now, and faster than a flagship! My friends, let me be the first ship that I know of to formally thank a band of pirates for stealing it!”_

Lizenne walked forward and ran her hand over Hunk's proudest work to date, examining the tubes carefully. “Well,” she said, “I was wondering when you were going to break through, Hunk. Congratulations.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “Huh? I just fixed a stardrive, that's all.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes. You fixed a defunct stardrive that was thirty centuries old and badly damaged, using parts from a vast number of ships from all different corners of the universe, and have modified those parts without needing a machine lab and a large team of skilled mechanics. This is an aetheric drive, my delightful nephew, and I have seen only one other in my entire life—the last intact Zampedran ship drive, and it had been sitting in the basement of a museum for over a thousand years because whole generations of scientists couldn't get so much as a beep out of it. Moreover, dear, you have done it with no formal training whatsoever.”

Hunk blinked at the engine, as if seeing it for the first time. “I just put together what felt right. The parts were all right here, in the piles.”

Keith, who had been handing him his tools, shook his head. “You couldn't have known what to look for, Hunk, but you homed in on them instantly. Most of those parts were buried under loads of other stuff, and Drosh and I saw you reshaping them to fit with your bare hands.”

“S'right,” Drosh said with a huge grin. “Some of the guys on my team would give someone's left arm to know how you stretched out solid Venrusian superalloy to fit like it was soft clay, and my own uncle, who worked in a landcar garage, would give anything for a way to make nonstandard parts come together like that.”

“You're a Technomage,” Lizenne said simply. “Hardware rather than software, and between the two of you, you and Pidge could probably conquer the universe. Was the Lion helping?”

“Yeah, sort of,” Hunk said, rubbing at his head. “She was there when I needed her. Pidge, want to go conquer the universe with me?”

She giggled. “Nah. If we conquered it, we'd have to run it, and that's an ulcer job.”

“Oh, I dunno, we could delegate,” Hunk flicked a smile at Allura. “Want to be an Empress while we go and have fun?”

“No,” she said firmly, “I have enough trouble managing you and the others. It's time we left. Clarence?”

“ _Yes?”_ the tinny voice asked.

“Are you willing to follow us for a time?”

“ _Sure. Pidge told me that if I did, I'd get to meet the Olkari, and then work with the Blades as a roving base. Since the Empire and the Vontakles would take me apart if I tried to go to any of them, I think that staying with you guys is the best bet. Just send me our next destination and I'll be there almost before I leave.”_

Allura nodded. “Thank you. Also, did they tell you what was being kept in that vault down the hall?”

“ _Yes.”_ Clarence's voice was as flat and hard as the sheets of hullplate stacked against the far wall. _“I really don't like that, and I'll thank you in advance for getting those canisters out of there. There are big holes in my new charts that weren't there before, and I liked some of those worlds. I sincerely hope that at least some of them are revivable.”_

“We'll find out soon,” Allura said comfortingly. “Lizenne, I assume that Zaianne will not leave our guests?”

Lizenne shook her head. “Not until it's safe to move them. I'll take the helm here; the rest of you get back to the Castle. We've dallied long enough in this treasure trove, and it's time and past time that we were gone. Hunk, you'll want a bath, food, and a nap very soon, and so will you, Pidge. Well done, all of you.”

 

Twenty minutes later, Lizenne was standing in the command center, watching as the Castle and the  _Chimera_ moved into formation on either side of the fort. Zaianne was still down in the detention block; a check on the barracks and crew quarters had revealed that the cells were cleaner, roomier, and more comfortable if enough blankets were brought in, so Sarell and her family had opted to stay put. “You're going to need quite a bit of refurbishment, my friend,” she murmured to the console, glancing down at the stubborn stain on the floorplates. “Military establishments have a tendency to become shabby after a while.”

“ _Don't I just know it,”_ Clarence replied sourly, _“you do not want to know what's going on from a bacterial standpoint in the kitchen right now, and the water-reclamation systems haven't seen proper maintenance in years. The water's safe to drink, but there are whole new species of cootie evolving in that section. I'll flush and decontaminate as soon as we have a safe place to do it in.”_

Lizenne hummed thoughtfully. “We have company coming, I assume.”

“ _Yup, and lots of it,”_ Clarence replied, _“this aetheric system that those two Paladins gave me is amazing. I can actually feel ships in hyper now, and they're closing fast. Not fast enough to catch us, though.”_

“ _Clarence, we are going to Medraht,”_ Allura's voice came clearly over the comm. _“Lock on to these coordinates and jump when ready. We are leaving!”_

Clarence chuckled. _“Of course, the_ Castle _has some aetherics in it as well. Here we go...”_

Two ships and a fortress leaped into hyperspace, leaving only a wrecked fleet behind them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Pie? Drop us a line!


	12. Interlude, With Evil-Tempered Ankle Biter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for fluff, another look at Galra culture and social interaction, and a certain amount of shrieking. This chapter is a shout-out to all that have ever been roped into babysitting a toddler. *salutes*

Chapter 12: Interlude, With Evil-Tempered Anklebiter

 

“They _what?!”_ Haggar snarled, causing the assembled generals to flinch at the fury in her voice; the messenger stayed where he was because he was too terrified to move.

“Stole the fort, Lady Haggar,” he said, “it's gone. No wreckage, and a drive trace that the sensors didn't recognize. We don't know how they did it. Auzorel's been nothing but a junkyard and a dumping ground for misfit troops for hundreds of years, and the drive was a corroded lump of trash, according to inspection records. The supply ship _Tchad Gorek_ , or what was left of it, was still there, but the Druid you sent along with it wasn't.”

Haggar hissed. She'd felt the Druid's distress and demise, a loss at this time that she could ill afford. Worse, she'd lost a potential replacement, and possibly two. Worse yet, the Empire had lost an energy reserve that could not be replaced until another extractor could be built.

“Distress signals were sent,” Haggar said in a deadly voice, “why did the rescue fleet take so long to arrive?”

The messenger gulped audibly. “Lady Haggar, Commander Varkos was known to be insane, and the fort often came under attack by pirates. Twice by Gantarash. According to the military distribution base in the neighboring system, they got frequent false alarms from both the fort and the home fleet whenever Commander Varkos's paranoiac tendencies were acting up. They tended not to listen until the nearby colony called for help, and even so, response time was slow. They did have a big fleet, after all, and they were usually able to hold off any attackers by themselves until help arrived, and the fort itself is well-armed.”

Haggar raked the generals with a scorching glare. “It seems that someone has been lax. That will be dealt with. Now go, and inform the commander of that distribution base that he and his command staff are to present themselves to me immediately, and that they had better be able to explain their actions to me in a satisfactory manner.”

The messenger fled, as well he should. Haggar turned her glowing eyes upon the general whose duties included that sector of space. “Why was a madman holding that post, Endrosk?”

General Endrosk shrugged, struggling to control his nerves. “This is the first that I've heard of the matter. There are dozens of such half-derelict dumping grounds for unsatisfactory personnel, and such are often overlooked by higher command. They are trivial embarrassments to the military, and should the ranking officer of such a post go insane and get his command wiped out, it is often considered a net gain; it saves the time and expense of ridding the military of dead weight through normal channels. Why should that one remote fort concern you, anyway?”

“Because it contained enough Quintessence to power the entire Imperial Navy for about a hundred years, that's why,” she snapped. “Sometimes, simple ignorance is a better concealment measure than absolute secrecy... so long as the higher command levels are properly vigilant.”

There was a growl from one of the other generals, stung into rash action. “Where is the Prince? He should be in command here, in place of his father.”

The others sidled away from him; it was not wise to challenge Haggar's authority, or to be anywhere near someone who did. She gave the man a long, considering look that made him realize that he was in deep trouble. “The Prince,” she said slowly, “has his orders. Zarkon regained consciousness briefly after Voltron's attack and commanded him to locate and destroy the Paladins. He is following those orders now, like a proper son. Will you countermand the Emperor's own words, General? He still lives, and is recovering. You know the price of disloyalty.”

“Indeed, Lady Haggar,” he said, almost but not quite able to disguise the tremor in his voice.

“Very good,” she said ominously, “I expect you all to keep an eye out for that stolen fort, and to retake it if and when it is found. The Emperor will not be pleased if his Empire finds itself having to ration its energy, and we will all be required to explain our conduct during these recent upsets. I will expect you all to mend what mistakes you have made and to make no more. We are all still under orders to capture the Lions, even as the Prince is. I suggest that we bend our minds to the problem.”

Sufficiently cowed, the generals gave her no more trouble that day. There would be trouble in the future, however; never before had the Emperor taken so grievous a wound, and a forward-thinking official might well consider his prospects in light of a strong young Heir. Haggar made a mental note to add a few layers of protection to Zarkon's healing pod. History was full of examples of what happened when the command staff became impatient for a superior to step down. The Prince would be looking for allies soon if he was not doing so now, and there were those who would leap eagerly at the chance for advancement under a new Emperor. Haggar herself had few allies aside from Zarkon himself; on the other hand, she also had few enemies. Anyone foolish enough to declare themselves against her tended to wind up in her labs in short order. She did not like to contemplate the possibility of a sudden regime change. Oh, she'd weathered them before, but they were risky, annoying, wasteful of valuable equipment and personnel, and they disrupted her own plans with depressing regularity. Drat. She needed more Druids to act as her rearguard. There were only two left now, and they had not been the strongest of their number. It was time to peruse her sources for more candidates, although...

Haggar glanced down at the healing bite wound on her hand.

Perhaps compliance rather than aetheric strength should be the deciding factor in making her choices. There were ways of boosting a Druid's powers without courting so much risk.

 

“ _Nrrrarf!”_

Hunk's hands paused in their work; something small and fierce was gnawing on his ankle again, and he looked down into a pair of large eyes the color of old honey. “How'd you get loose?” he asked, although the question was rhetorical at best.

The cub was mobile, but she wasn't verbal yet, although he was pretty sure of what she wanted. Reaching into a nearby bucket, he pulled out a large twist of what was essentially rawhide, spiced with a dab of tworsk extract; harmless, tasty, and it would keep her occupied until he was done making Sarell's lunch. He waved the treat in front of the cub's nose, making her squeak and grab eagerly for it, jaws wide open. She was teething again, tiny little ivory fangs jutting up visibly from pink gums, and she really liked having something tough to gnaw on. Zaianne had taught him the recipe for the chew toys as a way of keeping those little fangs out of everyone's shins. Little Tessela was perfectly democratic in her needs; if she felt the urge, she'd bite  _anyone._ Up to and including the leader of the Blade of Marmora, who had said a number of words that had not been at all suitable for children.

“Okay, Tessie,” he said, drawing her carefully away from his boot, “you want it? Go get it!”

He tossed it gently away over the floor, and the fluffy purple cub bumbled determinedly after it. Only when he heard a satisfied  _“nom-nom-nom”_ from the corner did he continue, however; sometimes she'd attack even if she had been given a treat. Hunk sighed and began sealing the Galra-style dumpling wrappers closed around their fillings. Allura had won the toss over who got to host their guests by arm-wrestling Lizenne for the honor. Allura had also been a member of a large and rambling family once, and although she never mentioned it, she missed having kids around the house as well. Lizenne had taken the loss with grace; besides, the Castle was better equipped to deal with eight squeaky cubs, and more to the point, with Sarell's health problems. Sarell was a petite woman by Galra standards, especially Palabekan Galra, and had nearly killed herself trying to prevent the Druid from taking her babies. Having had to birth and then nurse eight voracious cubs was very difficult for her, and making sure that she stayed comfortable and almost constantly fed was absolutely vital. Hunk had risen to the challenge, naturally; keeping the household properly fed was a duty that he enjoyed.

Sarell's husband had been shocked and initially frightened by the fact that he'd been rescued from his own kind by the Empire's sworn enemies, but he'd come around eventually when he realized that the Paladins hadn't been anything like the monsters that they'd been portrayed as in the general media. There had also been lurid stories spread around about Lizenne and Modhri as well, and the Marmorans were of course being blamed for all sorts of horrific things. It had taken him some time before he had been able to come to grips with the fact that the team of monstrous terrorists had actually been a group of quite friendly teenagers, and the diabolical rogue witch and her nefarious henchman had been a somewhat bossy but otherwise quite ordinary married couple. The Blades... well, who knew about the Blades, but Zaianne and Drosh were quite pleasant when they felt the need to be. Kolost's nerves had really taken a hit when he'd encountered Tilla and Soluk for the first time, but Hunk couldn't blame him for that. He remembered his own first encounter with the elephant-sized dragons very well. Tilla especially had been very interested in the cubs, whiffling them very gently before venting the usual sneeze-and-giggle, and then had curled up protectively around mother and children both. Sarell had accepted the extra nest-guardian without complaint.

Kolost, as it turned out, had been the foreman of Morusk Colony's salvage yard, and his wife the manager, buying and selling bits and pieces of defunct starship to reputable dealers only. The yard had a spotless record and had regularly made a tidy profit, making regular trips to and from the orbital fort to pick up or deliver special items. Historically, Auzorel Station had allowed the salvage yard the privilege of secure storage in return for maintenance and repairs on the ancient Jedrenickan craft, but that relationship had become rather strained when Commander Varkos had taken over the station. “He'd given us some trouble before,” Kolost had told them, “he was a raging paranoid, but Sarell had always been able to talk him down, and he could even be something like civil if we were very polite. This last time... this last time, however, it didn't work.”

A customer had asked for a set of ballast gyros for an antique Branilune packet-boat that he'd been restoring, and both Kolost and Sarell had gone up to fetch the parts, only to be accused of selling materiel and ordinance to pirates and traitors and imprisoned aboard the Station for the “crime”. Varkos had informed them later that he'd contacted Haggar and had offered them up as lab animals, and that a Druid would come to collect them shortly. Kolost had been terrified, and rightly so. He himself would probably wind up as fodder for the arena, but Sarell was a skilled witch. Skilled enough, in fact, that she'd already received an offer from Parzurak in the recent past, asking if she'd like to join the Druids. Kolost had refused to allow her to even consider it; one of his great-aunts and a cousin had answered that summons, and had never been seen or heard from ever again. The gods only knew what Haggar would have done to the cubs.

The cubs were adorable, much smaller than Human babies at first, wonderfully soft and fluffy with big amber-brown eyes and squeaky voices. They did, however, grow very quickly. In the two months they'd spent in Olkarian space getting Clarence cleaned, upgraded, and the Quintessence canisters  _very carefully_ removed from their racks, the cubs had gone from little puffs of sleepy purple fluff to bright-eyed toddlers that were surprisingly good at breaking out of their playpen. The boy-cubs weren't usually any trouble, not with Soluk and Tilla herding them around, and they were usually quite happy to curl up in someone's lap and sleep for a few hours. Tessie, however, seemed to be out to bite and bully the entire universe, starting with Allura's mice.

_Oh, god, the mice,_ Hunk thought, taking a fryplate out of a cabinet. The mice were, in their own way, the undisputed masters of the Castle, fully able to get into and out of every single inch of the vast ship, and they had previously gone wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. Tessie saw them as prey, and was determined to find out what they tasted like. So far, all she had tasted was failure where they were concerned. For the time being, at least, they were faster than she was, and smarter, and could set up the most remarkable traps, mostly involving Lance's butterfly net. At least that made it easier to return the little monster to her parents. It was not at all uncommon to see someone walking by with the net over one shoulder, the mesh bag full of squalling, furious Galra brat. It was kind of creepy in some ways, though. Hunk was not unused to maniacal laughter—oh, no, he'd heard it plenty of times before out of various people, including Pidge, Lizenne, and his supervisor back on Earth when he'd spent six weeks harvesting pineapples. Hearing mad scientist-type cackling out of that little blue mouse had been too weird for his taste, especially late at night when they were running through the ventilation ducts.

He'd just finished filling a platter with steaming, crisp-fried goodness when he heard a soft footstep behind him, followed by a ferocious, if squeaky  _“rowlf!”_ noise.

“Oh, no you don't, Missy,” Lizenne's voice said, and there was a series of indignant squeaks from the cub.

Hunk turned to see Lizenne standing in the doorway, holding the cub up by the scruff and the tail. Sarell was from Palabek, which was solid forest from pole to pole, and the Galra there looked as though they had a jaguar somewhere in their ancestry. While Tessela was far too young to show the long, lean torso, the graspy toes, or the amazing climbing abilities yet, she had a fluffy tail that puffed up into a bottle-brush whenever she was feeling particularly fearsome. Considering her temperament, this was nearly always.

“Hi, Lizenne,” Hunk said, hefting the platter, “Were you this bad when you were little?”

“Worse, actually,” she said calmly, tucking the cub under one arm and fetching out another couple of chew toys from the bucket. “I left scars on my father's legs. He was quite proud of them, actually.”

“Really?” Hunk said, reflecting that Galra daycare workers must need to wear armor-plated shin guards.

“Oh, yes.” Lizenne smiled fondly and stopped Tessela's squeaking with a treat. “Boy-cubs are expected to be placid right now, but a fierce and energetic girl-cub is considered to be a very good sign. Personally, I'm very encouraged by her vigor. We came far too close to losing the whole clutch.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said glumly, falling in beside her as she turned to take Tessela back to her mother's room. “How are her parents doing, by the way?”

“Sarell's improving, if slowly,” Lizenne replied, “she'll perk right up once these little anklebiters are weaned. I am to give you her thanks, by the way; that basket of tanrook buns got her through last night most excellently. Kolost is improving as well, but he's having a little trouble with his loyalties.”

“Still?” Hunk asked.

She nodded sadly. “He's been a staunch supporter of the Emperor all of his life, Hunk, like most Galra citizens out there. He knows that he should be turning us all in to the authorities like a proper law-abiding fellow should, but he's been betrayed vilely by those who should have been protecting him, and we've gone and saved his life and the lives of his family when by all rights we should have sold them to a Gantar butcher by now. We aren't even trying to indoctrinate them with degenerate agendas, and Lance has been sewing stuffed toys for his sons to wrestle with. The poor man doesn't know what to think.”

Hunk sighed. “Poor guy. And then there's the dragons. They look all fierce and maneating-monstery, but Tilla's been guarding Sarell nonstop and Soluk's been keeping him company while he's on watch. His whole world's been turned upside down. I know how that feels.”

“Don't we all,” she murmured darkly. “I know that mine did a barrel roll or two when the dragons first revealed to me the source of the Empire's power. Kolost's problem is that he is too old to take these shocks in stride; I was quite young when I lost my faith in the Empire, and you and your siblings aren't even out of your teens yet. He's gotten set in his ways, and that always makes seeing the truth very difficult. Sarell is younger and a good bit more sensible. She'll bring him around, never fear.”

Sarell was doing just that when they arrived, holding Kolost close and rubbing his ears while their babies snoozed in a puddle of purple fur nearby. Like everything else lately, compromises had to be made; Galra mothers with newborns preferred to nest on the floor, so the bedframe had been removed and a pair of mattresses had been shoved together into a corner and piled with blankets. Tilla and Soluk were absent, probably off getting some exercise; Zaianne was lurking quietly by the door in their place with bone spear in hand. Lizenne remained politely outside, Hunk noticed, and she put Tessie down and let the cub scamper over to join her brothers on her own. Sarell eyed Lizenne warily, but did not otherwise object. Largely, Hunk knew, because she was hungry again and his platter was taking up most of her attention. She really did look better now, her amethyst-colored fur glossy and her frame far less gaunt, eyes bright as good citrine in her faintly feline face.

“Lunch,” he said quietly, going down on one knee and setting the platter down where she could reach it without having to disturb her mate, who was lying beside her with his head in her lap, mostly asleep.

“Thank you,” she said in a soft voice, “it smells delicious. You are very kind. Have you and the others decided what to do with us yet?”

Hunk rocked back into a sitting position and ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. “That's up to you two, really. Allura wants to keep you around until she's sure that you're fully recovered, but after that, you'll need to be settled somewhere safe while we run off and make trouble everywhere else. Do you have a place where you can go?”

Sarell smiled ruefully, reaching over to stroke her daughter's face with a fond hand. “I bought a summer house on Jullespin recently, so that my children would have some proper trees to climb. I had not anticipated that it might have to be a permanent residence. I have savings enough to expand it if necessary, but Kolost will have to find another job. He has worked so hard and put up with so much from that raging animal in the fort, and now this.”

Hunk nodded. “It's partially our fault, I think. We've gotten into a lot of fights with Haggar and those Druids lately, and she's probably running low on them. Lizenne told us how they were made, and, well... you're probably on her grab list. Maybe Tessela, too, once she's grown up a little.”

Sarell's eyes glinted and glanced up at the door, but Lizenne had gone. “How are they made, then? I have heard that it was a spiritual transformation, an exaltation and a privilege like no other, but I have also heard some very ugly rumors to the contrary.”

“Eat your lunch first,” Hunk said, handing her a fork. “I don't want to ruin your appetite.”

“That bad, eh?” Sarell said, taking the fork and spearing a dumpling. “Can you trust your witch, I wonder?”

Hunk smiled. “Kinda, yeah. Haggar tried to turn her into a Druid, too, and two of us had to help her to not do that, and it nearly got all three of them killed. Lizenne's got her own agenda, but it runs close enough with ours that we've adopted her as our Scary Space Aunt.”

Sarell gave him a considering look, but did not stop eating until the edge of her appetite had been taken off. “What agenda is this?”

“ _Kheshveg,”_ Hunk said seriously, “against Haggar, the Emperor, and Sendak. We already got Sendak, though, so you don't have to worry about him.”

Sarell hissed, eyes wide. Kolost grunted and seemed to wake up a little, responding to her distress, and there were squeaks and tiny growls from the puddle of cubs.

Hunk nodded. “Sorry, but it's true. I wish that we didn't have to do this, but there it is.”

Sarell dug her fingers into the fur behind Kolost's ear, soothing him until he settled down again. “I have heard some very worrying rumors, and  _kheshveg_ is not declared lightly. Ever. You said that you would tell me how a Druid is made. Tell me now.”

“Lizenne didn't go into too much detail,” Hunk shrugged, “but the victim's injected with some weird potions and spells, and hexes—control modules—are set in the brain and spinal cord, and then she's poisoned. The potions and spells are what force the actual change, and the poison weakens her and adds extra incentive to make that change, so that she turns into something that the stuff isn't able to kill. At that point, she's no longer a person, but a thing. Then, they put one or two poor guys into the cell with it as food—it drains them of Quintessence, and then Haggar cements her control over it while it's still groggy. If it gets loose before she does that, and Pidge said that they sometimes break out of their cells if they're strong and hungry enough, it'll go hunting for more. Lizenne said that she'd managed to bite Haggar, and would have gone looking for her if Allura and Pidge hadn't saved the day. That was not a good day, and it needed a lot of saving.”

Sarell was staring at him in horror. “This is true?”

“Both Pidge and Allura had to take some pretty drastic measures to get the poisons and hexes out, and it took weeks for them to recover.” Hunk pointed at her plate. “I'll expect you to finish that, by the way, and don't cheat by feeding them to Kolost. I'll know if you do.”

“What he says is truth,” Zaianne said quietly from her post by the door. “I was there for part of that adventure, and witnessed its aftermath. The Emperor and his witch are responsible for ten thousand years of evil deeds; there is very good reason for Voltron to be set against them. Also, it does not do to waste good food,” she smiled fondly at Hunk, “particularly not his. Will there be more of those later tonight?”

“Sure, they're easy.” Hunk grinned at this compliment. “Oh, and I'll need some recipes for baby food, too. These little guys won't be nursing forever.”

“Thank goodness,” Sarell muttered, rubbing at her chest.

 

“ _Aieeeeeep! Eeep-eep-eep-EEP-yeep-grrgrrrgrrrrr!” Splosh! Splash-splash-splash-_ yeep- _gurgle!_

Truly it was said that a baby learns at least one new thing every day. Sarell had recovered enough to teach her clutch of youngsters about “bathtime”, and had enlisted Kolost, Modhri, Zaianne, Keith, and Lance to help her with that. The big tub in the Queen's suite was the only bathroom that could accommodate such a crowd, and the four adult Galra had slid into the warm water with sighs of pleasure. The cubs, who had never seen this much open water before in their short lives, had been allowed to make their own decisions. They accomplished this by letting Tessela take the lead while the seven males huddled together a safe distance from the edge. Tessela, as she always did when encountering something new and strange, screamed her battlecry and attacked it. The boys watched with great interest as she found out why it wasn't a good idea to try that with water. It wasn't long before she was paddling happily around in the shallows, however, and her brothers cautiously joined in. Their parents had pride of place, of course, playing with the cubs and getting them good and wet before soaping them down. Zaianne, however, had positioned herself nearest the door, watching that portal carefully while she soaked. Modhri had herded Lance and Keith to the far end, where the two Human boys sat hunched in embarrassment. Galra, alas, had apparently never gotten around to inventing bathing suits, nor did they have the same modesty customs that most modern Earthly societies did. Even Lance, whom any of his team might expect to yearn to see hot alien babes naked, was blushing painfully. Keith couldn't look at his mother without wanting to stare; not at how she was built, but at the labyrinth of old scars that cut channels through her fur. Some of those had been acquired during her career as a Blade of Marmora, but the older wounds...

He swallowed hard. In some ways, she'd taken as much damage as Modhri had, and could only admire both her will to survive and his father's skill at first aid.

“Why are we here, Modhri?” he heard Lance ask. “It's not like we're actually helping or anything way over here.”

Modhri smiled and patted his shoulder comfortingly. “Politics.”

“Huh?” Lance asked.

“Elementary pack politics. Pay attention,” Modhri indicated Sarell and Kolost with a flick of a finger. “Our pack has rescued a mated pair in great distress, and they have just had cubs while in our territory. This means that they cannot go anywhere until the young are fully mobile. This puts them in an awkward position: they must depend on us to feed and protect them, even though it is unlikely that they might join our pack permanently, nor do they see a way of repaying our generosity. Moreover, there is a chance that one of the ladies of our pack might take a liking to Kolost, and attempt to steal him.”

“They wouldn't do that!” Lance hissed. “They've got me!”

Modhri cocked a glance of wry amusement at him and waved a soothing hand. “I know, but the tension's there. It would be easier if Lizenne and I had already had a clutch or two, but there hasn't been time. Therefore, Lizenne is keeping her distance and has warned Pidge and Allura to do the same. Zaianne, who has had a child, has undertaken the duty of keeping the cubs from all harm. See how she watches the door? She is our pack's surety that our hospitality is sound. You two and I are here as a peace offering.”

“Okay, I think I can see that,” Keith said thoughtfully, “Lizenne's proving that her bond with you is good by allowing you in here with them, and we're reinforcing that 'cause we're your nephews, right?”

“Yes, and in addition to that, you are Zaianne's son, and neither of you are old enough—by our standards—to be looking for a mate yet. You are no threat to the cubs or to the older women, and you can both jump on me if I make a pass at anyone. Not that I will, of course, but the reassurance is there.”

“Okay, cool,” Lance said thoughtfully. “Anything else?”

Modhri chuckled. “Oh, yes. The most important part of our duty here is to keep the cubs from paddling out into the deep end and drowning. And to take a nice hot bath, of course. We'll be allowed to scrub up when the cubs are done.”

“And here comes one of them now,” Keith observed with a grin.

Once again, Tessela had been granted the honor of trying a new experience before her brothers did, and hadn't liked it much. Like many small furry creatures, she viewed soap as a vast insult to her dignity and was leaving a trail of pink suds in the water as she paddled over toward Modhri, clambered up onto his shoulders, and screamed defiance at her parents over the top of his head.

Modhri winced. “Ouch.”

“Noisy little monster, isn't she?” Lance observed, prying the tiny fingers off of Modhri's ears; Tessela was already growing in her claws, and had a surprisingly strong grip. “Yes you are,” he cooed at the angry infant as he dunked her back into the water for a rinse, swirling her around in wide circles. “Yes you are! You're going to grow up big and strong and bite the entire universe on the ankle, aren't you? You'll grow up to be a big scary witch and lead a big band of your very own bloodthirsty mercenaries, and have a whole harem of the prettiest boys, yes you will!”

Tessela thought that this was very funny and held tightly onto his fingers while hooting with glee. Zaianne snorted in amusement. “You'll give her ideas. Good. Keep doing that.”

Kolost sighed. “And I had hoped that she might go into orbital architecture. My grandmother made her fortune designing space stations. I don't know, Sarell, are architects allowed harems?”

“You tell me,” she said, rubbing shampoo all over one of her sons. “Did she have one?”

Kolost smiled and caught another cub before it could get away. “She had plenty of admirers, but only one man. Quite a good man, as I recall. Lance, just push her back over here when she's rinsed, please.”

Keith caught the next one, who had decided to follow his sister's example, although Keith intercepted the cub before he could try scaling Modhri's arm. “You're not worried that she might become a mercenary commander?”

“She'll go into whichever field of study that she finds most appropriate,” Sarell said complacently. “I'll worry about her then. Right now, I am far too pleased to see her being so active to worry about anything. She is everything that she should be right now, which is a good example for her brothers.”

“I envy them,” Modhri murmured, fielding a third, determinedly-paddling cub. “My clutch had no sister to show me the right way of things, and my elder sister and girl-cousins weren't interested in filling that place for us. I wound up following a neighbor's girl instead, and both sets of parents did not approve. Class consciousness can be so tedious when you're still little.”

“Lizenne?” Zaianne asked.

He nodded, swirling the cub around gently and rubbing its thick ruff to get the soap out. “My family had been looking after her family's vehicles and ships for generations. They had plans for her that did not include a liaison with a mere maintenance tech's brat, and they drove me off whenever they saw me near her. She, however, was not so easily deterred. It was that, I think, that cemented my affections for her. Men are supposed to pursue the ideal mate, yes? She pursued _me,_ and sought me out, and gave me the gift of her time despite the efforts of her elders to draw her attention away. I suspect that her parents sponsored me to the local military academy in an effort to get rid of me in as an efficient a way as possible. As you can see, this did not have the desired effect.”

Lance chuckled and pushed Tessela back toward her mother and received another cub in return. “Let's see... she refused an arranged marriage, ran away from home, spent eight months learning to pirate, did weird science in weird places, went feral for seven years with a pair of big lizards, hooked up with you anyway, swore to topple the Empire, and is helping us out with hero stuff when she isn't doing seriously weird magic. Hmmm, nope, she's definitely a disappointment to the family name. Mom had a cousin like that who ran off with a biker gang when she was sixteen, and the family won't talk about her except in hushed and jealous whispers. My brothers and I used to hide behind the couch to listen.”

Keith snickered. “Dad hung out with biker gangs for a while, too, although he gave it up before I was born. Didn't your folks object, Modhri?”

“Goodness, no,” Modhri replied, “my Lineage is large, but not wealthy. There is a reason why my Matriarch clung so closely to Lizenne's. My family could never have afforded to send me to the academy by themselves. It was to be our great chance for advancement, for starship engineers are paid reasonably well, and my mother was very glad to see me in command of my own ship. Alas.”

There was a deep undercurrent of loss in that last word, and all of them heard it. “Are they all right?” Lance asked sympathetically.

“I looked them up when I was able to use a computer again,” Modhri said in a neutral tone. “They're doing well enough. By declaring me dead, they were able to force the military to give them my personal effects, savings, and officer's pension packet. It's currently paying for the education of my nephews, so they have that much to comfort them, at least. Others have not been so lucky. I will probably never see them again, but at least I know that they are safe.”

“What happened?” Kolost asked, “I don't think that I was ever told this tale.”

Modhri explained his situation in a few terse sentences, and Kolost bared his teeth at how badly he'd been treated. “One light cruiser against a fleet of Gantarash pirates? You hadn't a chance, especially not with a ship that old! You and your entire crew would have been spitted and roasted within the day!”

“Yes, but very honorably.” Modhri pushed the cub back toward its parents. “The Emperor is very great, but he has no understanding of those less great than he is. Nor has he fought the Gantarash himself recently. They're learning from what they catch, and they're very dangerous.”

“I know,” Kolost said darkly. “The Auzorel garrison has had to run those creatures off twice in the last few years or so, and they had a very difficult time doing it, even though the Gantars never shoot to kill. They prefer their meat live, you see, and I still bless the day that Sarell bullied me into upgrading the defenses on the scrapyard! _Why_ won't the government pull those useless, bullying Ghamparva off of terrorist duty and set them to eliminating the Gantarash?”

Keith shot his mother a worried glance. Zaianne's eyes narrowed. “There have been Ghamparva in the Morusk System?”

Kolost was too upset to remember that Zaianne was one of those “terrorists”. “On and off. They drop in, ask everybody a lot of prying questions, and harass people whom they've no business bothering. They've been through my files three times officially and hacked them illegally twice, and then they leave without doing a single useful thing. Elites, my furry purple behind.”

Zaianne muttered a faint curse. “We may have to ask the Olkari to shelter you. The Ghamparva tend to jump to conclusions.”

Kolost and Sarell both stared at her in sudden alarm. “What do you mean?” Sarell asked.

“The Ghamparva's primary targets have been the Blades of Marmora since their inception. We Blades have allied ourselves with Voltron. Varkos accused you of selling parts to subversive elements, and used that excuse to sell you to Haggar. Voltron then pops up and filches that entire station, with you on it.” Zaianne growled under her breath. “An easy enough logic path to follow, particularly for a group that does not bother to do much deep research. We can make it look as though you had died during that incident, which will afford your families some protection, but you will not be able to return to your homes. Olkaria, at least, has some very nice forests to play in, and the Olkaris themselves are too smart to hate a whole people for the actions of a few individuals.”

Sarell hissed. “They will come after our families as well?”

Zaianne nodded. “We have known them to wipe out whole Lineages. No few of us are survivors of such attacks. Zarkon himself founded their agency for the purpose of wiping out dissenters, root and branch. You will protect your kin best by vanishing while leaving a misleading trace.”

“What?” Kolost yelped, and would have said more, but Sarell silenced him with a sharp gesture.

“I see,” she said in a hard tone that made her husband stare at her in dismay, “and I thank you once again for your aid. You will not regret this, I promise you; I have been wanting to speak with the Olkari in any case. Much of my early research parallels theirs. Kolost, you have said that you had always wanted to take a few classes in transorganic systems?”

Kolost looked dazed by this sudden turn of events. “Yes, but Sarell--”

She shook her head firmly. “We have cubs to protect.”

It was as though she had spoken a magic word. Kolost's features hardened and his shoulders squared. Yellow eyes flashed to his progeny, doing a quick count of them before pulling in a deep breath. “You are right,” he said, and his voice was free of all indecision. “We will speak to Allura and to the Olkari. The Emperor's witch will not have us.”

Sarell smiled sweetly at him and began soaping down another cub.

Keith and Lance glanced back at Modhri, who returned it with an enigmatic one of his own.

 

Coran was sitting in the lounge, going over the progress reports in restful silence. Their new... _ally..._ he was forced to call it—or him—still needed a good deal of work. Fortunately, the Olkaris had been delighted to help, and Clarence hadn't come empty-handed. Oh, no, there was treasure indeed piled in dusty heaps in the mobile fort's basement, and both the Blades and the Olkari were having a field day down there. Or up there, rather, since Clarence was an orbital fort. Coran had felt inspired to make a bunch of really horrible puns involving clearance sales and dark markets, but having wrenches thrown at one's head tended to pall rather quickly, especially when the thrown wrenches didn't miss. Cadets these days. Couldn't take a joke.

At least the Blades were happy. Kolivan and Clarence had hit it off immediately, and the sentient fort was perfectly happy to become a wandering base full of... what was the word that Lance had used... _Ninjas_. He'd had to ask about that, only to get a lot of conflicting information, most of which had sounded pretty unlikely. Or maybe not, considering the Paladins' own native talents, although he wasn't sure where the shelled reptiles came into it. Unfortunately, the fort's previous commander had left the thing in a wretched state of disrepair, which was a real shame considering how rare Jedrenickan starcraft were these days. So far, they'd managed to empty out the basement storerooms of a truly astonishing amount of valuable machine parts, build a tasteful little tomb for the fort's resident ghost, and refit the living quarters into something that was fit for any creature more fastidious than a gorp-roach. The kitchen, however, despite several decontamination procedures, appeared to be fighting back and winning. Getting the Quintessence out of the vault without breaking the containment units, now, that was a very tricky proposition indeed, even for the best engineers in this end of space. A few of the huge canisters had already been removed and brought into the Castle, and hadn't that interested Tilla and Soluk? The two dragons had been fascinated with the things, for all that they had disapproved of the fact that a whole living world had been squeezed out like a seela-fruit to fill every jar. The future looked to become very interesting, very shortly. Offhandedly, he wondered how the two big spiky reptiloids were going to return all of those worlds to life; just pouring the jars out wasn't going to do it, and how could they tell which jar belonged to which world, anyway? There were days when he really envied the aetherically-able.

Something nudged his ankle. Looking down, he saw one of Sarell's cubs examining his boot as if trying to figure out what it was for. This was Coran's favorite cub, a quiet, thoughtful-looking little chap who watched his sister's antics with an air of grave doubt, particularly when she was chasing the mice. Coran patted the couch seat next to him with one hand, a signal that the cub—Bezan, he thought his name was—knew well. As always, the cub seemed to give the matter a moment's careful consideration before pulling himself up onto the couch, and then flopped belly-down over Coran's lap. Coran dug his fingers into the luxuriant purple ruff that bushed out like a mane over Bezan's neck and shoulders, scratching vigorously until the cub purred in pleasure. In another few months or so, the cubs would start to lose their baby fur and would have to learn how to wear clothing in public, so Coran was happy to do this while he could. Galra really were cute when they were little.

After a time, he and Bezan were joined on the couch by the rest of the boys, who preferred to move as a group and make consensus decisions, usually after watching their sister try to bite whatever had caught their interest. It made sense, really: the more adventurous girls would rush face-first into new and threatening situations, protecting their brothers by subduing whatever couldn't run away fast enough. (Both Lizenne and Zaianne had a tendency to do just that, although Zaianne was the more cautious of the pair.) There would be one or two males like Bezan who would actually think before attacking and form their own opinions, and those probably wound up becoming leaders. The rest would be followers, of course, that was natural enough. Coran scratched every ruff that presented itself regardless of rank, and soon had a softly snoring puddle of cubs cuddled up against him.

It was inevitable, of course, that their sister would come looking for them. Coran didn't even look up from his reports when something small and fierce bit his leg. Not that it did her any good—he'd taken to wearing steel shin-guards inside his footwear recently and it had been fun to watch Tessela figure that out. There was a growl from below, and then she came hand-over-hand up his leg, fluffy tail held high for balance. Coran sighed. Bezan had woken up and was watching her, ready for a test of wills. Coran's lap had become contested ground, alas, and trying to interfere just got his fingers bitten. Bezan began to growl softly. He was comfortable and warm, and had no intention of giving up his happy place to this bullying little termagant. Tessela fluffed up her own ruff and tail and squawked imperiously, showing off the fangs that she was so proud of, and began to swat at him with both hands. This, alas, upset her balance a bit, allowing Bezan to catch her arm below one elbow and shove. Tessela hit the floor squarely on her rump, and her squeals of outrage made Coran's ears ring. The other boys were watching carefully, but were lying very still and quiet. Wise of them; Tessela would turn on them quick as a wink if they made any sound.

She began to climb the side of the couch, growling like a thundercloud, and Coran reacted instantly. The last time Tessela had gotten all the way up onto the headrest, she'd leaped back down in such a way that had made Coran sore in spots for days; while he might not have much chance to entertain a lady's fancies again, he'd rather be fully-equipped to do so if the opportunity ever resurfaced. Tessela yowled when he caught her under the arms and held her at arm's length while she waggled her limbs and tail and screeched imprecations at him. “You've got a future in public speech, young lady,” he told her sternly, “or as a drill sergeant, or perhaps a sports coach.”

Tessela glared at him, a deeply offended look in her honey-amber eyes.

“Yes, I definitely think you'd do well in professional sports, certainly as a personal trainer,” he continued cheerfully. “That bullying nature, that strident voice, that burning hatred of the universe and everything in it. You're a natural, dear. You remind me quite a bit of one of mine, actually. Coach Maslen, back in college, who always felt that his trainees should have real incentive to do their best. Never a day of track and field without wild vargs chasing us, never a dip in the pool without a school or two of norzat fish nipping at our nethers, and let's just say that the obstacle courses he ran us through kept our attention fully engaged! They eventually fired him for being too easy on us. Shame, really.”

It was impossible to tell just how much the cubs understood at this age, but Tessela's expression of frank disbelief could have won prizes.

It was at this point that Pidge wandered in, and she smiled to see Coran half-buried in purple fur. “At it again, is she?”

“Always,” Coran replied, handing her the grouchy cub. “She rather reminds me of Allura at that age, actually. The Princess left toothmarks in boot leather, too.”

Pidge giggled, rubbing Tessela's ruff. “Really?”

“Oh, yes, and I've still got a boot from that time to prove it. Had it bronzed. It was considered a high honor to be graced with the Princess's attentions in those days. Altean infants aren't quite as precocious as this little anklebiter, but they come close.”

“Huh. Our babies mostly poop, eat, yell, and sleep.” Pidge said, remembering a classmate who had acquired a baby brother just before she and the others had been whisked away by the blue Lion. “They don't even get their first teeth until they're around nine months old, and they're a lot more fragile.”

Coran humphed. “Your world must be a gentler place than mine was, then, if you can spare so much time at that stage.”

Pidge thought about it, remembering the long litany of ecological disasters that still occurred on a fairly regular basis. “Not really. For us, becoming upright bipeds was a bad move in a lot of ways. Until we developed decent medical science, we pretty much survived by breeding like crazy.”

“Always a popular method, although it has its drawbacks,” Coran observed. “Still, a well-planned eugenics program or two and some good-quality genetic engineering can handle most of that, eh?”

Pidge snorted. “Not for us. The few eugenics projects we did try were disasters, and genegeneering is still mostly illegal to practice on anything other than plants or animals, and there are tons of restrictions even on those. Sure, we managed to push through some gene-tweaking to weed out some really nasty congenital defects and diseases, but that's about it. We didn't really get into science as a mainstream profession until a few hundred years ago.”

“Late bloomers, then. No wonder you hadn't gone any further than an outer planet yet.” Coran shrugged. “Oh, well. Allura's determined to add Earth to our little Alliance, and maybe then we can give them some lessons. You can't be squeamish when it comes to the building blocks of life, you know, or let special interests stand in the way of necessary advancement. Why, I remember my first offworld trip as an intern, that was a diplomatic mission to Nangthrup, and the people there were absolutely adamant about--”

“Coran?” Zaianne stepped into the lounge, Keith tagging along behind her. “Allura wants you. Apparently, there's an argument going on between the Olkari Chief Engineer, Slavv, Kolivan, Slavv, Fort Clarence, and Slavv. That silly creature is worked-up enough that he's arguing against himself half of the time, and she needs a tiebreaker.”

“Happy to oblige, Madame,” Coran said cheerfully, and then looked down at his lap, which was still in Bezan's possession. “Um... Pidge, have a seat. It's all warmed up for you and everything.”

“But... hey!” Pidge protested as Coran stood up and swept her into his vacated seat, dropping Bezan into her lap for good measure before making his escape.

Bezan was of the opinion that Pidge was a perfectly acceptable substitute, but being a lot shorter than the Altean, there wasn't enough of her to share. He sat up and bit Tessela on the rump. This ordinarily wouldn't have been a problem, but for the set of sharp little canine teeth that he hadn't had up until a few days ago. Tessela, who had been dozing happily on Pidge's shoulder, let out an ear-bending shriek and mounted a counterattack, and there was a great deal of hissing and flailing until Pidge managed to get both of them settled down on either side of her lap, the two cubs growling at each other over her knees. The other cubs, seeing that she had both hands available to scratch backs, started squeaking for a turn. Pidge adjusted glasses that had been knocked askew in the course of events and glared at Zaianne and Keith, who were trying hard not to laugh.

“I don't have enough hands,” Pidge stated ominously, “I would appreciate some help here, if you've got nothing better to do.”

Zaianne gestured a negative. “I'm due to join Lizenne in drilling a group of my colleagues in the methods of fighting Druids in a few minutes. Khaeth?”

Keith took a step back. “Ah, I should really be--”

“Keith, come here,” Pidge said, and there was a note of command in her voice. _“Sit.”_

Rather to his own surprise, Keith sat, and was immediately swarmed by the cubs. Zaianne lingered for a moment, watching with a smile upon her lips. Her son might be half-Human, but there was enough Galra blood in him to respond properly when spoken to in the right tone of voice. Pidge was a good prospect, a strong and talented witch, and brilliant besides. Her son would benefit mightily from such a pairing, and any grandcubs they gave her would reflect that. Satisfied, Zaianne headed off to the training deck.

 

Sarell and Kolost entered the lounge a little later, having just returned from the planet below. The locals were willing to accommodate them for the sake of the friendship that their hosts had made, and indeed were eager to meet the whole family. Sarell had definitely found the huge, burgeoning forests very much to her taste, and Kolost had been mightily tempted by the technologies embedded in the trees themselves. Leaving his life and home in the Morzut system would be a wrench, but there were compensations. He still found it strange that the Empire's enemies should be so much more accommodating than the Empire itself, but Sarell refused to deny the truth in this matter, even trusting the Paladins and Blades with the care of their cubs while they were out. In truth, the cubs had taken no hurt, and their parents had to stop and stand there for a time, just watching the peaceful tableau before them.

Pidge and Keith had fallen asleep slumped together on the couch, the cubs piled up over their laps in a blanket of purple fur, little hands gripping shirts and jacket trustingly. The two Paladins looked painfully young and innocent themselves, as innocent as the cubs cuddled up around them.

“How could I have ever thought them to be evil?” Kolost whispered softly, unwilling to disturb this scene.

Sarell leaned her head on his shoulder affectionately. “We were misled, of course, I as much as you, and I am not afraid to admit that Lizenne and Zaianne still make me a little nervous. These children, though... no. The Lions chose very well. Pity them, Kolost, for they have a long, hard road ahead of them.”

He sighed and brushed his hand across the fine velvet of her cheek. “Let us leave them to this peace, then. They'll have little enough of it in the coming years.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the last for this arc, and a bit longer as a result.


	13. Dropoff, Discovery, and Disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of this arc, and thank you to everyone who read and left comments/kudos. Due to Real Life being a ho and our father recovering from surgery, there's going to be a stretch of time between now and when we post the next story. Sorry for the wait, but we have most of the third arc completed and are just waiting for things to calm down over here.  
> But enough with the boring stuff. On with the fic!

Chapter 13: Dropoff, Discovery, and Disaster

 

Things had progressed smoothly over the past several weeks. Fort Clarence, as everyone was calling him now, had been fully refurbished and upgraded, and the Blades had taken him out and away into the secret reaches of space that only they knew. Kolost and his family had been settled into a comfortable home just outside of the city, where they could work most comfortably with their hosts. This arrangement was a very hopeful thing; some Olkari were uneasy about having a Galra family living nearby and learning from them, and needed some time and a little space to get used to them. Sarell didn't mind this at all. She was happiest when surrounded by old-growth forest, but she found the locals to be a little weird. Tessela and her brothers didn't care one way or the other; Olkari youngsters were already sneaking away from their own studies to play with the admittedly adorable cubs, and Kolost was willing to welcome them. Free babysitting, especially for eight increasingly active toddlers, was never something that one should turn away.

The Olkari had other things to be fascinated about in any case; Hunk's astonishing aetheric engine had attracted whole crowds of eager scholars, and Pidge had spent a great deal of time explaining what she had done to revive, merge, and revitalize a pair of near-defunct AI's. Clarence, she had been told, was no mere computer. He was a live ship now, and completely unfettered by control modules, and as much a person as the next man. The fact that he was perfectly happy to work with flesh-and-blood types instead of running off into the stars alone was unusual; the reason why live ships were so rare was that they had a nasty habit of going feral, and could often cause great harm to or even actively seek to wipe out any organic life that they encountered. To all of this, Hunk merely shrugged. “We love machines,” he said simply, “why build something that's going to hate everybody? Sounds counterproductive to me.”

Even with all of this friendly attention, it was not entirely a bad thing to have to leave, even though the Castle was once again too large and too empty without their guests. Zaianne had stayed, of course, but Lizenne and Modhri had retired to the _Chimera_ along with the dragons for a time to get a little privacy. “The Olkari wished to speak with them, too,” Zaianne informed Allura and the others. “Often well into the night. They found the concept of _Tahe Moq_ fascinating, I'm afraid, and they often wound up seeing the dawn from the wrong side of the clock. Let them sleep!”

Rest was definitely something that the resident mages had to consider, since they were currently on their way to Zampedri with a large cargo of Quintessence. Lizenne didn't know if she or any of the others would be needed to help restore a dead planet or two, but she did know that the Elder Dragons would definitely want a look at them, and that would be a wearing event all by itself.

Despite this, Hunk took a deep breath of the grass-scented air when they came down with the heavily-laden cargo pod and smiled nostalgically as the _Chimera_ parked itself in what apparently was its usual spot. The Castle came down on a flat spot a mile or so away, and Hunk soon found himself joined by the whole crew.

“Nice place,” Lance said, observing the rolling yellow hills and blue-green sky. “Nobody mows much around here, do they?”

Lizenne flicked him an amused look. “Only the grazers, and in the hottest part of the summer, lightning storms will occasionally start grass fires. Lucky for us that it's autumn, eh? How shall we do this, Soluk?”

The dragon grunted, uttered a long string of crackling grumbles, and then he and Tilla vanished into the grasses.

“They've gone to have a talk with the greater pack,” Lizenne informed the others. “It isn't done to barge in on the Elders unannounced. They'll be back in a little while. In the meantime, we can relax a little.”

Allura gazed around curiously. “Will we go to them, or will they come to us?” she asked. “I'd rather not have to move that cargo pod any more than necessary.”

“I don't know,” Lizenne replied quietly. “I've only met with the Elders once before, shortly after I arrived the first time. I can't tell you how they'll react to this delivery.”

“How did they react to you?” Hunk asked.

Lizenne snorted. “With rather more interest than I liked. The Elder Dragons are _big_ , and extremely powerful. Then they laughed at me, which is never a pleasant thing for a hot-tempered, angry teenager to hear.”

“Ah, yes, I know that one,” Coran said cheerfully, “we're all a self-important lot when we're young and beautiful, and a bit of well-deserved mockery stings more sharply than a bezwick bite. Necessary, though, if only in retrospect. I and the rest of the training staff were under orders to tease the cadets regularly in order to remind them that they weren't the center of the universe. Worked better on some than on others.”

Zaianne smirked. “We didn't bother with mockery. Bouncing trainees off of the walls and floor a few times has the desired effect. Let the enemy mock you, my own instructor said. If he's wasting time trying to think up inventive insults, then you have enough time to cut his throat.”

“You and your colleagues, Madame, are savages.” Coran chided.

She gave him an arch look. “No more than the enemy is, and we're rather better at survival than they are.”

Modhri had been standing a little apart, facing into the wind with his eyes half-hooded. “Do you think we have enough time to take a short walk, Lizenne?” he asked quietly, “I think that the sintras are blooming down in the marsh.”

Lizenne brightened up, sniffing at something in the air that neither the Alteans nor the Humans could detect. “You may be right. Let me get a bag of those sampling bottles and we'll go and have a look.”

“Sintras?” Pidge asked.

“Large flowering plants,” Modhri explained, watching his mate trot back to the _Chimera._ “The pollen and nectar have many uses, and she does not waste any opportunity to collect them. Besides, they're amusing, and the marsh is a pleasant place to be on a hot day. Most of the big predators prefer to avoid it.”

Zaianne frowned at him. “Do we dare to leave the pod unguarded?”

He nodded easily. “The dragons know that it's there, and probably what's in it. The pack is as one, Zaianne, and what one knows, all may know. Nothing will be permitted to disturb it.”

Keith shifted uneasily. “But the pack isn't here. There's nothing out there but grass.”

Modhri chuckled. “You're not paying attention. Watch the grass, boy. See the little glints of blue?”

Everyone blinked, and then took a good hard look at the surrounding prairie. Sure enough, there were sparks of azure among the yellow stalks, and the Paladins gasped as their eyes finally found the outlines that they had missed before. Concealed within the forest of grasses were dozens of dragons, all of them watching with interest, and all of them nearly invisible. “We're surrounded!” Coran yelped.

“We're protected,” Lizenne corrected him, coming up with a satchel slung over her shoulder. “Come on, it isn't far.”

 

The marsh was a quarter-hour's brisk walk through the grasses, trending slightly downhill to where a small creek bottomed out into a shallow depression in the hills. They smelled it before they saw it, a combination of damp earth, sun-warmed water, and the bewildering melange of a thousand varieties of blooming plants, sweet and spicy and potent. The air was full of tiny bird- and insect-equivalents that hummed and twittered, and their first sight of the marsh made Allura gasp in delight. It was beautiful, with large pools of open water mirroring the sky, and the yellow grasses gave way to pillowy mosses in shades of rich orange, red, and ochre. Huge stands of flowering plants bloomed extravagantly all around, and the waters were alive with small creatures.

“Stay on the red mosses,” Lizenne warned them, stepping carefully around a patch of ochre, “that's where the ground is firm enough to walk on. Step anywhere else and you'll sink. Don't try to catch the metallic green bugs, they sting, and will make you itch unbearably for a week. Those bushes over there with the silver spots on their leaves are to be avoided for the same reason, and Hunk, I know that those look like melons, but if you disturb them they will explode. I really don't want to have to spend the rest of the day picking the seeds out of your flesh. If you feel the need for a snack, dig under the plants with the fernlike blue leaves; the tubers are sweet, crunchy, and harmless as long as you wash them well and make sure to break off all of the little red warts. Try not to fall into the water, either.”

“Why not?” Lance asked, eyeing the pools suspiciously. “Are there, like, evil man-eating leeches, or little fish with huge sharp teeth or something?”

“No, the mud's just really sticky and a pain to get out of your fur.” Lizenne smiled at him and took a bottle out of her bag. “The evil man-eating leeches are dormant during this season, and the little toothy fish prefer bigger waterways. The only creatures that you really need to avoid other than the tinri flies are the ipiris and valmops. Ipiris are squat, blue, and have large red spots on their backs, and they shouldn't be touched with bare hands. Valmops look like blobs of rabid pink jelly. Feel free to poke at everything else.”

Well, not _everything_ , as it turned out, although the results of that were more amusing than anything else. There was a large plant that put forth enormous, strong-scented flowers in a rich cobalt that was very pleasing to the Galra and the Humans, but one sniff made Coran's eyes spin in their sockets. He wobbled and fell over with a squelch into the mud, giggling uncontrollably, and had to be dragged up onto the bank to sober up. Allura made a mental note to avoid those and helped Lizenne in her gathering.

Lizenne's objective was a medium-sized flowering shrub with large, fragrant, pink-and-green flowers that looked for all the world like a pair of lips and a long hairy tongue. Pidge couldn't help but giggle at the sight of them. “Those remind me of kindergarten, on the day when we visited the zoo and all got lemon-lime snowcones. The food dye turned our tongues bright green, and we spent the rest of the day sticking them out at each other.”

Lizenne chuckled, slipping the “tongue” of one flower into the jar and tapping it lightly to release the pollen. “I like any plant that goes to so much effort to make faces at the universe. Especially when it produces substances that are useful.”

“What do you use them for?” Allura asked, eyeing the bottle of green powder curiously.

Lizenne sealed the bottle and brought out a fresh one, spreading the liplike petals apart and pressing a pair of bulbous nodes gently. This caused thin streams of a pinkish liquid to spurt into the jar. “The pollen can be used to make a powerful medicine for fungal infections, very important during the wet season. It can also be used to treat ailments of the nose and throat, and it's also good as a nutritional supplement when used to season food. The nectar is an antidote for several rather nasty poisons, and when combined with a few other things, can produce a potent truth serum. Very useful, if you need to get information without hurting your victim.” She smiled slyly at Pidge. “Or risk having him fall hopelessly in love with you.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “I'm never gonna live that down, am I?”

“You are already legend among the Blades,” Zaianne told her, and then turned to Lizenne. “We would welcome a few samples of those, and the methods by which to use them.”

Lizenne handed her a couple of her sampling bottles. “You shall have them, although if your scientists can synthesize these chemicals, they're far more skilled than I am. Just warn your people that they're going to have to make certain agreements with the dragons if they want to come back to harvest more.”

Zaianne smiled. “We have made bargains with worse. What pacts will we need to make?”

Lizenne held a bottle of peach-colored liquid up to the light. “Promises of secrecy, mostly, and a promise to do no harm to any plant or animal that does not attack you first. You are not to overexploit these resources, nor are you to cause wildfires out of season, and you will be expected to eat what you kill, and to share your kills with any young dragons whose parents have not hunted successfully. You will also be expected to leave at least one of your number here.”

“As a hostage?” Allura asked sharply.

“As a student.” Lizenne fixed them with a grave look. “Galra have shown themselves to have very bad habits where it comes to planetary resources. If the Blades of Marmora wish to have access to Zampedri's bounty, they must come to understand why those habits are wrong, and to teach their fellows about proper balance and sustainability. Nothing on this world is ever wasted. Can your people spare a few inquisitive types, Zaianne?”

Zaianne looked thoughtful. “Possibly. I will speak with Kolivan about this. Will we also be taught _Tahe Moq_?”

“If one or more of them has talent, yes.” Lizenne put the jar of nectar away and smiled. “It is time, I think, that the discipline was resurrected.”

“We could sure use the help,” Pidge said, looking at her still slightly-knobby wrists. “Besides, Haggar needs to be taught that she can't have things all her own way. I'm sort of surprised that nobody's turned up in the last ten millennia that could challenge her.”

“Not among the Galra,” Zaianne said grimly, “not since the Sisterhood War. Those not taken for Druids have been assassinated, and such harvestings have not been uncommon elsewhere. I wonder if that's why the Alteans were preserved; your people have produced potent magi in the past.”

Allura gritted her teeth. “If so, I will free them. I will _not_ allow Haggar to farm them like animals! Someday there will be a reckoning, and that witch will pay for what she has done!”

“ _Kheshveg,_ dear heart, it has been declared already,” Lizenne said with a fierce smile. “Her days are numbered, and already we have reduced her power. We will have to be careful, of course; you have revealed yourself to her as a puissant Mirror, and Pidge as a Technomancer, and she may attempt to take you again in order to steal your power or turn you against us.”

“Not happening.” Pidge said staunchly. “If she tries to turn me into some kind of monster, I'm going to--”

There were startled shouts from behind them, and they turned to see an amazing sight. Looming up above the grasses were the spiky heads and backs of five enormous dragons, easily three times the size of Tilla and Soluk, their burnished scales glinting in the sunlight and their eyes the same color as the sky. Creatures out of legend, awesome in the old sense of the word, they moved with vast dignity and surprising grace, and yet they moved in silence. Ancient, yet stubbornly vigorous, and keenly intelligent.

“My goodness,” Lizenne murmured, and then put her bottles away. “Ladies, come. We must greet the Elders.”

 

Later on, they were all unable to remember much about that meeting. The sheer force of presence that the Elder Dragons carried was immense, and tended to fog the details somewhat. They had all stood for inspection, they remembered that much clearly enough, even Coran, who had been shocked right through sobriety and out the other side by their attentions. Questions had been asked and answered, problems posed and solutions suggested, and a consensus reached. In the end, the whole group found themselves sitting in the back of the empty cargo pod without being at all sure of what had just happened. The sun was setting over the grasslands; half of a day had mysteriously vanished, and Lizenne was looking through a satchel of bottles that had all been filled, quite without her being able to remember filling them.

Eventually, Lance spoke up. “Guys, if I were to ask what just happened, would I get an answer that I can understand?”

“No,” Lizenne said absently, “but they took the canisters and the responsibility for them from us, and I have the impression that any more that we can bring them will be gratefully received.”

Hunk groaned and rubbed at his head. “Yeah. Wow. That was like talking with dinosaurs. Big, magic dinosaurs, but really awesome ones, like the kings and queens of all that is Godzilla, but nothing like as radioactive.”

“I must be tired,” Keith said, “that actually made some sort of sense. Allura, are you and Coran okay?”

Allura was sitting with her face in her hands and Coran was slumped against the wall, looking a bit shell-shocked. “I can't explain it,” Allura said in a thin voice. “They understood. About everything. Everything.”

“I'll be all right in a bit,” Coran said, trying to push himself up a little straighter and not having much luck. “Can't focus very well at the moment, though. By the Ancients. Allura, if we do manage to add the dragons to our Alliance, kindly remember to add those blue flowers to the list of proscribed substances when it's time to talk about trade, will you? My veins are still fizzing, and I think that I can see right through my hand.” He waved one vaguely before his face, eyes crossed. _“Whooo—eeee—ooo...”_

Pidge was looking at her own hands, which were stained green around the fingertips and smelled of sugarsnap peas for some reason. Smelling the sweet green aroma made her hungry, and she realized that breakfast had been a very long time ago, possibly in a galaxy far, far away. “Did we do any magic?” she asked muzzily, “Did they do any magic?”

“None of you did,” Modhri said softly, sounding vaguely stunned. “The Elders might have. I feel... this feels a little like the memories I have of the arena. Not bad, but... blurred. Lizenne blurred those memories to spare me pain.”

“Ours were blurred to spare everyone trouble,” Zaianne said, enunciating with painful clarity. “I expect that none of us can remember exactly what they did with the Quintessence. If we do not know, we cannot tell anyone else.”

“Makes sense,” Hunk said, heaving himself upright and stumbling to the open cargo door, peering out over the grasslands. Hey, there are our dragons. What's that they're carrying?”

Everyone looked out, seeing the pair of spiky pseudolizards approaching with something large and awkward-looking slung between their jaws. Lizenne smiled. “They have been hunting, and have caught a yulpadi. Very good. I invite you all to dinner, ladies and gentlemen. Hunk, I shall now teach you how to make my favorite stew.”

 

Yulpadis were weird-looking creatures, sort of zebra-ish and sort of spider-ish, with a hefty dose of steam shovel thrown in for good measure. They did make a delicious stew; so delicious, in fact, that the two Alteans dug in as eagerly as everyone else did. Pidge seemed determined to eat her own age in bowls, prompting Lance to say, “Hey, leave some for the rest of us!”

She waved her spoon at him and burped. “There's lots. Besides, aren't you guys always nagging me to gain weight?”

Hunk grinned and laid down his spoon. “Yeah. Let's just check that... ow!”

Pidge had rapped him smartly across the knuckles with her spoon. Modhri cast them both an admonishing look. “Children, no cadet-toss at table, please.”

“Yes, Uncle Modhri,” Hunk and Pidge chorused, and felt absurdly comforted by that. Here was family, makeshift as it was, even at the furthest ends of the universe.

Keith scraped his bowl and licked the spoon clean. “We're all really hungry, though. I haven't been this hungry since we took that mind trip. What did they have us doing? It's not like I can use magic, can I?”

“You tell me,” Lizenne said with a shrug. “I know that I didn't cast any spells. I'm already a known quantity to the Elders, and all they asked me for was an explanation. An explanation of _what,_ exactly, I'm not sure. They may have asked you all for a demonstration of your talents, which was what they asked of me the first time, many years ago. Can you remember anything like that?”

The others stared at her blankly. “Not a bit of it,” Coran said.

The others concurred. Lizenne nodded and offered Keith another refill. “I couldn't either,” she said, ladling out fragrant stew. “I did have some rather unusual dreams for a few nights afterward. Be warned.”

 

Dreams or no dreams, there was work to do. The first payload of Quintessence had been delivered and it was time to attempt another; Kolivan had sent the Castle a message. One of his best operatives had managed to steal another key. Not without considerable trouble, alas. This key was to a larger, more heavily-guarded stockpile, and the Blade who had stolen it had not been quite so lucky as Zaianne in his getaway.

 

The Paladins were playing “blind hunt” with Zaianne, a game where they turned off the lights in one of the abandoned sections of the Castle and then coordinated with each other through the strength of their pack-bond alone in an effort to locate and capture the wily Blade. Zaianne, of course, was allowed to hunt and capture them right back, something she enjoyed perhaps more than she should, and rescuing the prisoners was all a part of the game. They had progressed to the point where they could actually see her through the bond now, as a swift shadow limned in blue. They'd even managed to capture her a few times, and their average was improving. Even now, Allura was running hard, bayard at the ready, aware of the motions of Hunk, Pidge, and Lance; Somewhere up ahead, Keith's aura had flared up like a torch in sudden alarm. She was the closest, and the other three were taking their direction from Pidge; the green Paladin's mental map of the Castle gleamed like a gem in her mind, and she showed them the likeliest paths that their shadowy foe would run for if Allura wasn't able to stop her. Allura darted around a corner and charged, her target in sight, the others converging on the three possible escape routes. Keith lay on the floor at the far end of the hall with a dark figure holding him down; three blue lights like eyes jerked up to focus on her and the creature leaped up and away...

There was a grunt and a thud, and a shout of “Gotcha!” from Hunk.

Zaianne's low chuckle drifted through the darkness, and then there was a crash of armor hitting the wall, and then the floor. Hunk yelped. Allura leaped over Keith's back and cannoned into Zaianne, knocking them both sprawling over Hunk's body in an awkward pile; she pressed her bayard hard across the back of the Blade's neck, forcing her head to the floor. “Yield,” Allura panted as the other three Paladins ran up, weapons at the ready.

Zaianne sighed. “Oh, all right, if I really must. You're getting better at this. Well done.”

Allura didn't fall for it this time. The game wasn't over until one or another of them said the actual word, and the last time that they'd forgotten to insist on that, Lance had wound up with the edge of Zaianne's knife pressed to his throat. Hostage dramas are only fun if you aren't the hostage, and no Blade of Marmora fought fair if they could possibly avoid it. “Yield, Zaianne,” Allura said.

Zaianne humphed, sounding a bit disappointed. “Fine. I y--”

Her words ended in a yelp, for the lights suddenly flashed on, blinding everybody. “Paladins! Get to your Lions!” Coran's voice crackled urgently over the PA system. “We've just received a distress call. Zaianne, I need you on the bridge!”

Cursing and rubbing at streaming, outraged eyes, everybody lurched up and headed for their stations. They were already in armor, at least, which saved time. “What's happening, Coran?” Allura demanded, sprinting for the bridge.

“The Marmoran who was bringing us that key wasn't able to get away cleanly—he's being pursued hard. Two Ghamparva craft and a heavy cruiser. His ship's damaged, and from the sound of him, he may be wounded as well. Hurry!”

The Paladins put on an extra burst of speed, and seconds later the Lions roared out into space, the Castle and the _Chimera_ close behind them.

It didn't take them long to find the embattled Marmoran ship; neither the cruiser nor the Ghamparva were making any effort to conceal their actions, and the Blade's distress beacon was screaming across all channels while the pilot wove crazily to avoid enemy fire. Pack-bond still strong from their game, the Paladins formed Voltron almost instinctively, and the heavy cruiser wound up in pieces in very short order. The Lions disengaged to take on the Ghamparva craft, which had opted to pursue the Blade rather than to challenge the giant war machine; the _Chimera_ and the Castle were keeping them busy, but they weren't quite up to dealing with the fast, agile Ghamparva ships. The Lions were faster and more agile still, and it was with great satisfaction that the Paladins saw their foes destroyed.

The Marmoran ship, however, had been badly damaged, and the red Lion had to bring it into the docking bay. Once inside, Keith dismounted in a hurry, rushing over to the torn ship. As he approached, the cockpit creaked open, the cracked canopy's bearings grinding unpleasantly, and the pilot half-staggered, half-fell out of his ship. Red-purple blood spattered the deck and the Blade clutched at his right shoulder; the arm hung limply, and glints of pale purple light showed between his fingers. Keith had seen _that_ before, and knew what it meant. He caught the Blade before he could collapse, slinging the warrior's good arm around his shoulder and supporting his shaking steps. “I've got you, buddy,” Keith panted, “hold on, we'll get that looked at.”

“ _Keith?”_ Allura's voice came sharply through his helmet. _“Is he still alive?”_

“Yeah, but he's been hurt bad,” Keith replied, easing the gasping Blade toward the lift. “Looks like a Druid put a hole in him, possibly days ago, and he's lost a lot of blood. I'm heading for the infirmary now, but I could use some help here.”

The Blade wheezed in a breath. “The Princess,” he rasped. “Must get to the Princess. Now. I must give her the key...”

“She'll meet us there,” Keith reassured him.

“No... I must give it to her now...”

The Blade groaned, his knees trying to buckle under him, and Keith had to struggle to keep him upright. The wounded Galra wasn't as tall as some of his colleagues and very lean, but he was still taller and heavier than Keith was. The lift doors hissed open, and suddenly the others were there, Lance propping the Blade up on the other side. Lizenne was there too, although she paused well out of arm's reach, and her voice cracked out a warning shout of “Allura!”

The Blade's head came up and he lurched forward out of Keith's grip, the fingers of his working hand fumbling at a belt pouch. He cried out, a thin note of anguish sharp on the air, and he crumpled limply to the deck; something spurted out of his hand as he did so, a small, jagged metal object that struck purple sparks when it hit the floorplates.

“Don't touch it!” Lizenne snapped, going to her knees to examine the Blade, who was moaning faintly. “Damn. Kuphorosk to take that witch and break her into a thousand pieces, he's dying. Keith, Lance, roll him over and cut the suit away from that wound. Hunk, I'll need your strength to hold him still. Allura, Pidge, to me!”

The Paladins complied instantly, and they hissed in sympathy when they saw the wound. It was a deep hole in flesh and bone, big enough for Pidge to fit a fist into, and veins of livid luminescence had wound themselves through the exposed tissues. The blast he had taken had cauterized most of the wound, but blood still seeped from it, and it smelled bad.

“Two days ago, maybe three,” Lizenne said, examining the gory pit. “And probably with no food and certainly with no rest, and no time to treat it, and the physical injury is the least of his problems. Double damn. I may have to replace the arm, assuming that he lives. Allura, I want you to draw some of the energy off of that key— _slowly,_ not all at once, and feed it to me. Do you see the hexes planted in him, Pidge?”

“Two of them,” Pidge reported, “strong ones. They're killing him!”

“I'm aware of that. I'll purify the energy that Allura gives me and pass some of it to you. Use it to undo those hexes, and carefully—he's not strong enough to bear having them popped all at once. The rest will go to strengthening him. Hunk, Lance, Keith, he'll try to fight. Hold him down and _do not_ let him claw or bite you. Allura?”

Allura's hand hovered over the palm-sized object, but she did not touch it. Her fingers tingled as though she were holding them too close to a fire, and the thing stank of malice. Carefully, she opened that strange place beneath her heart and drew the power in, feeling it claw at her spirit, trying to find a way out of the constraints she was putting on it. It failed, for the Lion was there, locked onto her heart and lending her strength. She was not at all unhappy to pass the raw energy on to Lizenne, who grunted at the feel of it and sneezed violently, a cloud of what looked to be black mist spurting out into the air and dissipating. One hand was pressed to the Blade's chest, the other grasped Pidge's arm. The wounded Blade screeched at her touch, bucking hard against the hands holding him down, and the other Paladins were soon hard-pressed to keep the wild-eyed, snapping patient still. Pidge groaned with her own efforts, sweat trickling down her face as she wrestled the hexes loose from his body. The wound flared bright purple as the hexes forced him to fight her, and the Blade screamed in agony.

“More, Allura,” Lizenne ground out between gritted teeth, and then sneezed again as she separated Druid's malice from the energy.

Lance and Keith strained to keep the Galra man still, their own perceptions fizzing at the proximity of the aetheric forces warring all around them. They could see the pollution in the Blade's body and spirit, and how Pidge and Lizenne were combating it, and they did not know how they could help other than by continuing to hold him down. All they could do was watch as one hex, then the other, was wrested loose and crushed; Pidge sat back with a gasp of relief, leaving Lizenne to pour healing energy into the Blade's depleted body. He subsided with a moan, slipping mercifully into unconsciousness.

“Hunk,” Lizenne panted. “Get him to the infirmary. Now. Go! He is by no means out of danger yet!”

Hunk didn't bother to reply, but lifted the Galra as though he weighed nothing and ran for the lift. Lizenne heaved a huge sigh, coughed, and spoke a few words that caused a grass-scented breeze to flow through everyone present. “Are you all right?” Pidge asked. “What did they do to him?”

Lizenne gave her the ghost of a smile. “I'll be fine, after a snack and a nap. Paladins, you did everything perfectly. Is there any more energy in that key, Allura?”

The Princess handed her a piece of cast brass engraved with peculiar sigils. “Not much. I had to drain most of it out. That felt vile! It was much stronger than the first key.”

Lizenne turned it in her fingers a few times, then handed it to Pidge, who made a face and blew on it. The livid purple light lurking in the engraved symbols flickered and turned a clean, pale blue. Lance leaned back on his hands wearily. “But what did happen to him? I mean, some of it's kind of obvious, Shiro got one of those poisoned wounds too, but the rest...?”

Lizenne rubbed at her eyes. “The key had been booby-trapped. Bad enough that he'd been hit with a mage-bolt, but the key would have killed him for sure, and possibly the next person who touched it. It set two hexes in him, one that gave him a slow poison, and another that was forcing him to bring that poison to his superiors. It was also meant to trap any witch that might have touched it.”

“Really?” Keith gasped.

“Oh, yes. We did indeed save a life this time, and from a fate far worse than death.” Lizenne heaved herself to her feet and helped Pidge up. “Had Kolivan's best witch attempted to steal this key, it would have paralyzed her, and she would have joined the Druids... along with all of her fighting skills and every drop of information that she carried. I am amazed that our poor fellow lasted so long.”

“We'd better go check up on him,” Pidge said, handing the key back to Lizenne, who slid it into a pocket. “Zaianne's going to want to know everything.”

“And get something to eat,” Allura murmured, rubbing at her grumbling stomach. “Do witches usually spend so much time thinking about food?”

“If they're active ones, yes.” Lizenne chuckled. “All of that energy has to come from somewhere. Boys, are you all right?”

Lance and Keith were looking deeply troubled. “I'm fine,” Keith said, pulling off his helmet, “but, well... we were playing blind hunt with Zaianne before Coran yelled for us, and then we formed Voltron and smashed those ships--”

Lance flashed him a surprised look and continued for him. “Yeah, so our pack-bond was really active, and then we had to help here... and... and I could see what you guys were doing inside that Marmoran.”

“Me too,” Keith said. “I could see what you were doing, too, and I wanted to help...”

“But we didn't know how.” Lance finished, casting a sidelong look at the red Paladin.

Lizenne nodded. “You're probably nearing a breakthrough of your own, as the others have done. Do not be discouraged by this early failure, and don't try to force it. I'm not at all sure of how your talents are going to manifest. If it makes you feel better, I still haven't mastered more than half of my own discipline, and probably will never master it all.”

Lance smirked at her. “Still lousy at predicting the future?”

“All but hopeless at it.” She reached out and patted his shoulder. “Come on. I do need to see if I'm going to have to clone that poor fellow up a new arm, and I think that there might still be a few sausages in the cooler.”

“Dibs!” Pidge said, darting for the lift.

 

By some miracle, Kolanth was able to keep the original arm, although he was still wobbly and he tired easily even after several days in the infirmary. “Another hour or two, and he would've gone through the rest of his life with the nickname of 'Lefty',” Coran confided in them during that time, “gangrene is no laughing matter.”

Kolanth was just relieved that no one else had been hurt. “I was caught unaware,” he said in a dry voice, rubbing gingerly at the new scar on his shoulder. It was a large, pale mark among his dark fur that would be some time in fading. “I had little trouble finding the key, and opening the safe that it had been kept in was no trouble at all. My specialty, you see. It was when I touched the key that everything went to hell.”

“Bare-handed?” Zaianne asked.

“I'm not quite that much of an idiot,” Kolanth said with the ghost of a smile. “Drosh spared no details in his report. It had me, though, the instant that I picked it up, and all sorts of alarms went off at the same time. Between the poison and the compulsions, I was not able to fight what came after me, or even to dodge properly. I warn you all—Haggar has acquired more druids, and they are terrifying.”

“She also probably knows that we're after her stockpiles, hence the booby trap,” Allura said grimly. “We are going to have to be very cautious in the future.”

Kolanth nodded. “And find new ways of picking pockets. I wonder... would spells like those that caught me affect a Sentry?”

Everyone looked at Pidge. “Probably not,” she replied. “They've got nothing that's vulnerable to poison, but the compulsion... I might be able to harden a Sentry against that kind of thing. Want me to steal a few and find out?”

Kolanth gave her a surprisingly sweet smile. “If you would, please. If you are successful, my Lady, and can give us a squad or two of those, you will have us all singing your praises.”

Zaianne tapped him on the head with a finger. “Prettily put, Kolanth. Entertaining hopes, are you?”

Kolanth burst out into rough laughter. “Zaianne, fully half of the Order is in awe of that little girl, and the other half is terrified of her. She helped to save my life. How can I not dream a little? I can only hope that the rest of her kind can live up to the standards that she is setting!”

Pidge had gone very red. Lance grinned at her. “Congratulations, Pidge, you've discovered a source of boyfriends for the nerdy girls. I hope they like purple fur! Which one are you going to try?”

Pidge had also developed a very respectable right hook and demonstrated by aiming one at Lance's navel.

Kolanth smiled to see Lance collapse wheezing to the floor. _“Very_ high standards.”

 

Haggar observed the terrified captain coldly for a long moment; not so long ago, his failure would have earned him a place on her list of Robeast candidates, but in this case it might be all to the better. She wasn't going to let him know that, however. “What is it, I wonder,” she murmured ominously, “about the Blades of Marmora, that a heavy cruiser with a seasoned crew and no less than two Ghamparva cannot capture a single wounded individual in a damaged ship?”

“Their ships are extremely fast and maneuverable, even when damaged,” the trembling captain said, “and they themselves are incredibly skilled and durable. The Ghamparva captain explained this to me with great thoroughness. They are the ones, after all, who are specifically trained to deal with those traitors. Neither of us were expecting to have to deal with Voltron. Lady Haggar, I was not aware that the two had joined forces. Even a heavy cruiser has little chance of dealing with that monster alone!”

“You were not alone,” Haggar pointed out.

The captain gulped audibly. “The two Ghamparva were driven off by a pair of support ships, and then destroyed by the Lions. I could not come to their aid because my own ship was in three pieces by that time. Lady Haggar, I cannot do the impossible. We sent out a distress signal the moment that the Lions appeared, but by that time it was already too late. Where are the Ghamparva, anyway? I know they survived.”

“I have already met with them,” Haggar said with a smile that made the captain cringe. “You are correct in that dealing swiftly and surely with the Blades is their responsibility, as is answering for any failures in that duty. They have done so. You are also correct in that I cannot ask the impossible from a mere ship's captain; therefore you will keep your command and your rank, and you will be given a new ship and orders to stand by until I am ready to make use of them. The Blade stole something from me that will lead him and his allies to their doom in short order, and you will take part in that reckoning. Now go, and be ready for my summons.”

For a moment, she thought the man would faint from sheer relief. He turned his sway into a bow, muttered his thanks, and left as quickly as he could. Haggar watched him go in silence, and then made her way to the healing chamber. She still had other supplicants to see in the Emperor's place, but they could wait. Indeed, it would do them good to let them sweat a little longer, and the more their fear ruled them, the easier it would be to keep them under control. Fear certainly kept everyone out of the Emperor's presence, at least. She had set three Druids to watch over him at all times of late, and very few assassins were willing to challenge those. Her new ones were a fine batch, strong and obedient to her will. They stood like masked shadows around the slab, still and silent, and she could sense their cold vigilance. Also still and silent was Zarkon himself, breathing steadily, if slowly. “Has there been any change?” she asked.

“None,” a Druid rasped. “The Emperor rests.”

And so he did. He had, in fact, been resting for far too long. His physical wounds had long since healed; the mental exhaustion should have worn off by now, considering how much sleep he had gotten and Quintessence he had absorbed. She suspected that something was keeping him asleep, although how, she was not sure. The systems supplying nutrients and water to his body were secure, as were the ones keeping him clean. The ventilation systems were also under her eye, and the Druids did not permit anyone or anything other than her into this chamber. This was no artifice of that rogue witch either, nor was it of the green Paladin's. It had taken some considerable effort to keep that bizarre computer virus from infecting this particular section of the station, but she'd managed it, and had gotten a good feel for the creature that had spread it around. An aetheric virus, as a matter of fact. The green Paladin was a Technomancer, a very rare and dangerous talent, and one that would have to be dealt with. Well, there were ways.

She touched her lord's face lightly, her fingers tracing the harsh planes of his cheekbones, trying to sense whatever was holding him captive within himself. Six Paladins, he had said, but there were only five. And yet...

Haggar frowned at the dim air. The black Lion had become inactive after Zarkon's wounding, and had had to be carried away by its fellow Lions. It was possible that its pilot had been injured or killed, although the Lion itself had shown no damage in the videos that she had studied. Zarkon had felt, through his fading bond with the Lion, the current Paladin; could he have sensed another? This argued that the first was still alive and the second was standing in, although that was unlikely; full Paladins did not share their Lions willingly with others unless they were physically incapable of dragging themselves into the cockpit. Back in the old days, when he had led the team, Zarkon had not liked having to permit the cadets anywhere near his Lion at all, and had chafed bitterly at the regulations that forced him to do so. His predecessor had been no different, and that Paladin's predecessor had died in the cockpit rather than give up his seat to another. Who was flying the black Lion now?

Haggar vented a frustrated _tchuh._ She hadn't the time right now to get to the bottom of this. Zarkon was alive and on the mend, the scans indicated normal brain and organ function, and he could be allowed to sleep for the moment. Right now, there were more pressing matters to worry about. The stolen fort with its stockpile of Quintessence continued to elude all search efforts, including her own attempts to scry for it; all she had gained from an exhaustive session had been a whiff of dry grass. A second key had been stolen, an event that could, with careful management, be turned to her advantage. That particular key opened another orbital fort, albeit one that was a great deal newer, larger, and better-maintained than Auzorel had been, with a highly-trained staff and a sane commander.

Haggar humphed thoughtfully and headed back to her lab. She had personally questioned Auzorel Fort's surviving officers, and they had all concurred on one thing when they hadn't been heaping blame on Varkos's head; the Fort's AI had stopped listening to them, and had powered down all defenses while Voltron had smashed the defense fleet. Inwardly, she disparaged the Paladins' foolish mercy, allowing the majority of their enemies to escape, although that hardly mattered. The greatest threat that team posed was not Voltron itself, although that thing came close; it was the Green Paladin. Nearly half of the Empire's fighting forces were comprised of drones, Sentries, and artificial intelligences. One single half-trained Technomancer, Lion-boosted though it was, had severely disrupted Parzurak itself; if that vile creature made any more breakthroughs, it was entirely possible that those machine forces might no longer be usable. Therefore, the Paladin would have to be killed or subverted.

Personally, Haggar would prefer to subvert it. She had taken a Technomancer as a Druid once, and it had served her extremely well for two decades before it had died; simply killing it would be a waste, but it would cripple Voltron, and that was also a worthwhile effort. She turned into one of the smaller workrooms, where her current project was held in a large clamp; it buzzed spitefully at her and glared with its single blue optic as she approached, its antigravs humming in a futile effort to break free. She noted that the containment measures that she'd put around it had worked this time; the small devices placed outside the shielding had not been subverted. Haggar smiled grimly at the corrupted security drone. “Now then,” she murmured, raising a hand, “let us see exactly what that little wretch did to turn you against your rightful masters.”

An hour and a half later, she had her answers. If she acted now, she could have everything ready by the time that the Lions decided to strike. It would mean that she would have to give the three Druids in the Emperor's chamber some extra instructions, and would require her absence from Parzurak for some time, but that merely gave her more opportunities to test the loyalty of the Admiralty and the Generals. She would need other help besides them, but such aid was easily obtained. Mind humming with plans, she headed back to the throne room and summoned a secretary. “Contact Prince Lotor,” she commanded, “I have work for him.”

 

“You don't aim low, do you?” Lance asked Kolanth.

The Blade shrugged. “It was the only key in the safe. They can't all be as easy as that first one, more's the pity.”

Lizenne had managed to identify the stockpile that the key belonged to, and it was a doozy. Shomakti Station was one of the newer, really top-secret ones, and it had been hidden inside a very large, very thick asteroid belt in the Basimere System. Basimere, or so Coran had told them, had once been a pleasant place with two paradisaical planets and several habitable moons. Unfortunately, Kolanth added, the Basimerans had been dead set against having the Galra Empire stomping in and taking over, and now there were no planets or moons. Only a very large debris ring remained to orbit the sun, making it a terribly tragic and lonely place. Possibly a haunted one, too—the Basimerans had leveled a dire curse upon their ruined home system before going extinct, and there were some very ugly rumors circulating about the place. Sensible ship's captains avoided the Basimere System like the plague, which made it an excellent place to hide a Quintessence stockpile.

Zaianne, predictably, didn't like it. “The Castle and the _Chimera_ will be of little use there,” she said, pulling up images of the area. “The asteroid field is so wide and so dense that the two support ships will not be able to maneuver without risking severe damage. The Lions will have little trouble, but we will not be able to help, not without blasting a path, and we cannot do that and fight effectively at the same time. The ships' particle barriers are good, but not that good, and attempting to force it will just crack our crystals.”

“Voltron should be able to handle it,” Lance said confidently, leaning back in his seat. “What're their defenses like?”

“Formidable,” Kolanth said grimly. “The Station itself is very well armed, with six ion cannons, numerous pulse cannons, a full division of drone fighters, and a fine selection of missiles and bombs. They also utilize the surrounding metallic asteroids as a part of their defensive system by fitting them with thrusters and aiming them at attackers. There is a sizable defense fleet as well.”

“No large ships?” Keith asked.

“No. As Zaianne has pointed out, large craft are at a great disadvantage in that terrain.” Kolanth rubbed absently at his shoulder again. “It would take an entire fleet of destroyers to blast enough clear space in that mess to fight in, and in the process of doing that, any smaller craft would probably wind up being blown to atoms. Speed is our friend in this. If Pidge can take the the Station's AI and if Voltron can move fast enough, we may well be able to do it. Unfortunately, Shomakti is not a mobile fort, and I do not know if it can be converted into one. It will also be fully manned, and unlike Auzorel's previous inhabitants, those serving there know exactly what is in the vaults.”

Pidge scratched at her nose. “Do they have Sentries?”

“And drones, yes. Those are standard,” Kolanth replied. “Auzorel did not because Commander Varkos didn't like them.”

Pidge nodded. “Once I take control of those, we shouldn't have any trouble. All I'll really have to do is section off the areas we want and slam the doors on the rest. The Olkaris gave us some of those molecular saws, so even if the Quintessence jars are locked into the same sort of racks, we should be able to get them out of there without too much difficulty.”

Zaianne frowned at her complacent tone. “Assuming that Haggar has not come up with a way to block you. Quintessence is the source of her power, both magical and political, and she has faced Technomages before. There is a reason why they are rare.”

Allura nodded. “She will act to protect her power base. How has she dealt with technomages in the past?”

“She's a cyberneticist, among other things,” Kolanth supplied, “and has a deep understanding of both organic and mechanical systems. That 'trojan horse' that Pidge is so good at dispelling is her work. I believe that she came up with that thing after facing the last one she fought, about ninety years ago. It's possible that she might develop another, or a stronger variant of the first.”

Pidge smiled. “I can handle it. I used to hunt down phishers and scammers all the time, and scramble their server farms. Some of them were pretty tough, but I always punched through.”

“We can always bail if things go south,” Hunk said, his expression worried. “I don't like this target, guys. We got lucky the last couple of times, but this one's a little too big for my taste, and the enemy already knows what we're up to. Sorry, Kolanth, I know you nearly died to get that key to us, but I really don't like this.”

Kolanth waved a reassuring hand. “I don't either, to tell you the truth. You don't have enough allies to be certain of a victory here, and there are other stockpiles out there. Nothing says that you have to attempt this particular Station immediately.”

Keith shook his head. “If we don't move on it now, that just gives Haggar time to beef up the defenses even more. Hunk's right too—we can leave if things go bad and come back later. Anything to add, Modhri? Lizenne?”

“Nothing immediately helpful,” Modhri said. “I've never even heard of the place, but it seems that caution will serve us best in this case.”

Lizenne shrugged. “I can't contribute much, other than that same warning and one of my own. Pidge, Haggar knows of you now, and she will seek to neutralize you, one way or the other. If you are killed or worse, taken and turned into a Druid, we're all in serious trouble.”

“I think we can do it,” Lance said with a grin. “If we can crash Parzurak twice and put a hole in Zarkon—which we did—we should be able to pull this one off. How 'bout it, Princess?”

Allura weighed her options. “It's worth a try.”

 

Dense was not the proper description for the area around Shomakti Station. _Packed_ might have been better, or perhaps _stuffed._ There was a lightsecond or two of clear space around the station itself, but beyond that it was nearly solid nickel-iron asteroids. There was one broad avenue through the crush that led straight to the station's dock, but the swarm of small fighter craft patrolling this route and the huge guns of the Station itself did not make trying this approach look like a good idea. This not only forced the support ships to park a long way out, but it made communications difficult. So much metal in such a confined space made the signals bounce and scatter randomly, and the scanner systems were badly confused as well. “Can't hear anything in there, and can't see anything either,” Coran grouched, trying to wrest some sense out of the hash that his instruments were giving him. “Worse than the Shells of Cantus, even! Modhri, are you having any better luck?”

“No,” Modhri answered grimly from the _Chimera._ “Someone really put a lot of thought into this. I can't even come any closer without overloading the shields. This is Lion's work.”

“Then let's get to work,” Keith said. “Be ready to form Voltron on my mark. Pidge, are you ready?”

“Ready and waiting,” Pidge said. “Let's go!”

The Lions launched without further delay and began weaving through the tight maze of asteroids with care and precision. Pidge angled her Lion around beneath the Station, looking for a clear spot near one of the sensor clusters and engaging the cloaking device when she came within operating range. She found a cluster easily enough, a slightly raised portion in the armor plate studded with small dark rounds that looked a little like buttons, but the moment her Lion touched the side of the Station she felt that something was wrong. The purple taint that infested all Galra devices was very present, but... it smelled different. There was a strong smell of road slush in the usual stink, and a slick gray tone in the color of it that she hadn't seen before. There was a sound, too, a sort of faint, jittering hum that made her teeth buzz, and when she tried to clear the taint off, it wouldn't budge. She tried again, drawing on the Lion's core for strength, only to fail a second time. Pidge ground her teeth in frustration, her backbrain spinning furiously as she tried to find a way in. The new code was like a sheer wall, smooth as ice and impervious; she'd never seen anything quite like this before. Worse, the hum was horribly distracting. If she could just get the miserable thing to shut up...

There was a warning beep from the console. She had ten seconds left on her cloaking system. Pidge took a deep breath and focused her mind for one more try, then jerked back with a cry of alarm when the aetheric shield opened an enormous glowing violet eye and looked right at her. Alarms screamed and the Lion leaped away, but it was already too late.

“Pidge, what happened?” Hunk called through the helmet 'link. “The whole fort just lit up!”

“I can't crack this one!” Pidge shouted over the radio noise, badly shaken by her failure. “It's got a new type of virus. Kolanth was right.”

“Yeah, well, get out of there and help us with these fighters,” Lance said, and Pidge heard the distant roaring of his guns, “Maybe you can— _holy crow on a stick!”_

The asteroid field was on fire. Explosions, thousands of them, rocked the void with shockwaves as the fleet of destroyers hidden within it opened fire, blasting the space junk into lethal shrapnel. This bombardment bounced harmlessly off of the fort's shields, but the Lions had no such protection and were tossed about and battered mercilessly. No sooner than had the worst of the debris cleared, the hidden ships opened fire.

“ _Paladins!”_ Coran shouted somewhat indistinctly through the static. _“...Ambush!... Large battleflee... flagship... same one... last time... hundreds! ...ust form Voltr...”_

“Pidge, we need you!” Keith shouted, “We've got to form Voltron, now!”

Pidge didn't answer; the green Lion was struggling to get out of a sleeting mass of jagged, red-hot debris, and soon had her hands full with other problems. Fighters as well as incoming fire were pouring out of the battlefleet above, and the fort itself had brought its guns online. Pidge was forced into sudden, gut-wrenching maneuvers to avoid them, and they were herding her away from the others. She managed to break through somehow, but a lance of hot ions from one of the destroyers nearly fried her. “Guys, help!” she called frantically.

“Form Voltron!” Allura cried desperately.

“We can't!” Hunk called back as the yellow Lion was mobbed from all sides. “There's no room, and Pidge is still stuck all the way over there!”

“I'm on it!” Lance called out, hurling his Lion daringly through another swarm of drone fighters, drawing them off and heading directly toward the green Lion. He flashed by right behind Pidge's tail, forcing his entourage to wreck themselves by smashing into the ones that were after her. “Come on, Pidge, can't you do something about these things?”

“No!” Pidge said, half choking on the cold, bitter reek of the fighters. “I can't get in! We're going to have to combine and do this the hard way.”

“ _Forget Voltron!”_ Lizenne's voice crackled across the comms. _“Get out of there, now! Haggar's on the flagship, and she's gearing up to—oh,_ tajvek, _Zaianne, they've spotted us!”_

“ _Retreat!”_ Keith shouted. “Get back to the Castle! Run!”

The Lions fled, dodging wildly to avoid enemy fire and not having much luck. The  _entire area_ had been englobed by the huge fleet and the tiny area of clear space was full of fighters and ion blasts. The asteroid field had been stirred up badly as well, and any attempt to go through it would smash the Lions to pieces. As it was, they were taking more hits than they could comfortably absorb. The only way out was the avenue that they had avoided earlier, and it was crammed with the enemy. Out beyond it, barely visible, were the two bright glints of their support ships, shields up and blasting furiously at their own share of the fleet.  _“I'm opening a portal,”_ Zaianne called out.  _“We can't stay here any longer. Come!”_

“All together, guys,” Keith said tensely, “blast and keep blasting! We have to punch through!”

As one, the Lions opened fire, drilling a hole in the enemy forces. As they did so, the vast dark shape of the flagship sprang forward in pursuit, its bow beginning to crackle with energies other than its ion lance.

The Lions broke through with breathless cries of relief, the black Lion surging ahead, the others trailing behind as they raced toward the watery blue circle of the wormhole.

“ _Hurry!”_ Modhri cried. _“Look out behind you!”_

The flagship let fly with a bolt of harsh, purple-edged dark energy that screamed out through space like a thunderbolt from the hand of an angry god, and it slammed directly into the green Lion. Pidge shrieked, her brain on fire, and her Lion screamed along with her; she felt as though huge clawed hands had sunk into her heart and mind and were slowly tearing them to pieces. Lance heard her cry ringing in his ears and saw the green Lion falter, and cried out in terror as he felt her portion of the Lion-bond start to unravel.

“ _Pidge!”_ he screamed, panicking; he didn't know what to do, there was no way to block the thick serpents of amaranth-black light that were crawling over the green Lion's plating. Instinctively, he reached out to her through their overstrained bond and _felt—_ as surely as if he'd laid his own bare hands upon it—the net of foul energies that had been flung over her. Revolted, he laid hold of that ghastly construction. Without knowing how he did it, without ever knowing how he did it, he _pulled_ with all of his strength...

The hex stretched like an orb-spider's web across an unwary face, and then abruptly tore loose from its half-set moorings to rebound onto the other Lions. It splashed chaotically into the blue Lion, arced over to the yellow and then the red, impacted upon the black Lion in a flare of purple-rose light, and then up to the _Chimera_ where it stopped in a burst of gold. Lance howled in agony, as did the other Paladins, and an answering cry came from Lizenne. Somehow, the first four Lions managed to remain on course, but having taken a direct hit, the green one tumbled away through the wall of the wormhole and was gone. They spilled out into normal space a few minutes later, the sounds of four people being foully ill crowding the comms.

“ _Modhri? Modhri! What just happened?”_ Coran demanded over Zaianne's cursing. _“Paladins, are you all right?”_

Modhri replied, his voice breathless and shaking. _“Haggar cast a spell at us. A big one. Don't know what kind. Rang my head like a bell, and Lizenne's... oh, gods, Lizenne's unconscious, and she's hurt.”_

Hunk groaned wretchedly. “Haven't been this sick since we left Earth, and my head's splitting. Guys?”

“I'm still alive, although I'm glowing again,” Allura said shakily, “and I feel like someone has driven a spike into my skull and filled my bones with acid. Keith? Lance?”

Nothing but moans were coming from Lance's channel, and Keith wasn't much better. “Not feeling real good here,” Keith rasped, “and Lance sounds worse. Pidge? Pidge? Oh, no, Coran, can you find Pidge?”

“ _No,”_ Coran replied after a moment. _“No, I can't.”_

Lance coughed harshly. “She was right behind me. Caught the worst of it. I tried to stop it. Didn't work. She fell out through the side of the wormhole. I couldn't... couldn't help her. Guys, I really couldn't. Oh, _quiznek,_ my head!”

“ _Bring the Lions in,”_ Zaianne commanded. _“We must tend to your hurts before we can start searching. Can you tell if she is still alive?”_

There was a pause, and Allura spoke up, sounding very unhappy. “I'm not sure. I can feel something, but it's far away. So very far away, and I hurt too much to see clearly.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill us.

**Author's Note:**

> Kokochan: As stated in our last fic, we survive solely on a diet of kudos and comments. Without them, we would wither and die. Dead writers do not post new chapters.


End file.
